VOLUME I: A–E
:Ace:
Alien power, Cosmic Dominion, designed by Paul Hlavacek, illustrated
by Felicia
Cano. Four Planets variant: Under this
variant Ace still follows his Game Setup text, so he will end up
with three planets and 12 ships. Other unique system
setups: In a multiple-power game, if a player has Ace
and another alien that also does something special with its planets
or ships, Ace should always purge one planet and a fair share of
ships for that planet. Thus Ace+Pygmy purges two
ships, Ace+Worm
should purge four, and Ace+Symbiote purges eight.
In other words, when a player must perform two or more of these Game
Setup texts the sequence should be Pygmy, Symbiote, Ace, Worm.
Wins with One Colony
(Red)
Game
Setup: Remove one of your planets from the
game, sending your ships on it to the
warp.
You have the power to
Triumph. At the start of your turn, if you
have any foreign colonies, use
this power to win the game. You may still win the game
via the normal method.
Other players may have an
encounter at one of your foreign colonies whenever the
destiny card drawn allows them to target either your
home system or the system that hosts that foreign
colony.
(Offense
Only)
(Mandatory)
(Start
Turn)
Fearless
freedom fighters for a forbidden force, the
legendary Aces terrify lesser warriors. Judged not
by their size, but by their peerless physical
prowess, each athletic Ace was desperately hunted to
presumed extinction. Now, using mystic mind tricks
to disguise themselves, these majestic masters of
the martial arts seek to fortify one rebel base, and
then conquer the Cosmos.
Wild:
After encounter cards are revealed, if you are opposed
by all other players you may play this flare to win the
encounter. Give this flare to the Ace after use (or
discard it, if the Ace isn't playing).
(Main Player
Only)
(Reveal)
Super: As
the defense, if you lose the encounter, instead of
sending your ships to the warp you may relocate them to
any one other planet in a different system, establishing
a colony there. Afterwards, discard this
flare.
(Defense
Only)
(Resolution)
:AI:
Alien power, Cosmic Eons, designed by Bill Eberle & Peter
Olotka, illustrated by Felicia
Cano.
Gets Smarter (Red)
You
have the power to Think Ahead. At the start
of every player's turn, add one token to this
sheet.
As a main player, before allies are
invited, you may use this
power to look at a number of hidden elements up to the
number of tokens on this sheet. The hidden elements you
can inspect are cards in players' hands, cards on the
tops of decks or sets of essence cards (e.g., the top
three cards from one deck, or three top cards from
different decks), hidden alien powers, and facedown
cards hidden by players (for example, in the Miser's
hoard or any essence cache).
These tokens
accumulate and are not "spent" when you use your
power.
(Main Player
Only)
(Optional)
(Alliance)
After
a modest beginning as a programmable calculator, the
AI had a sudden growth spurt after it learned how to
replicate itself. Soon, the AI dominated all
inferior intelligences. Now bored, the AI is sending
copies of itself out into the Cosmos hoping to find
and envelop new types of
intelligence.
Wild: As
the defense, after encounter cards are selected but
before they are revealed, you may look at your
opponent's card without showing it to others. Then, both
main players return their encounter cards to their hands
and select again (choosing the same cards or different
ones).
(Defense
Only)
(Planning)
Super:
When adding a token to your alien sheet, you may add two
instead of one.
(As Any
Player)
(Start
Turn)
:Alchemist:
Alien power, Cosmic Dominion, designed by the fans, illustrated by
Felicia
Cano. All discard piles are potentially
available for transmutation, as long as you have a card of the
appropriate type in your hand to discard. Examples: You may discard
a Negotiate to the regular discard pile and retrieve a Negotiate
(Faulty Translator) from the reward deck discard pile (or vice
versa). If there are flares in the unused flare deck
discard pile because of something like Aristocrat, Wild Chrysalis, Host, Pentaform, or Alien Outpost, you may
retrieve one of them after discarding a flare to the cosmic deck
discard pile (this will gradually increase the number of flares in
circulation). Alchemist is purposefully absolute in this regard;
when playing some kind of homebrew variant that puts other types of
cards in your hand such as hazards, tech, or space stations, you may
similarly transmute those card types, discarding them to the
appropriate discard piles based on the variant.
Converts Cards by Type
(Yellow)
You
have the power of Transmutation. Once per
encounter, you may use this
power to send one of your ships to the warp. Then,
discard one card from your hand and take a card of the
same type (attack, negotiate, artifact, etc.) from any discard
pile. You may transmute an attack card only if the two
cards' values are within 4 of each other (such as an
attack 08 and an attack 12).
(As Any
Player)
(Optional)
(Start
Turn)(Regroup)(Destiny)(Launch)(Alliance)(Planning)(Reveal)(Resolution)
In
a dark age, the Alchemists spun others' trash into
treasure – for a substantial fee. Few knew it was
all a scam, a generational confidence game of
black-market purchases and using one race's
abandoned input as another's miraculous output.
Then, in an even darker age, as their intergalactic
fraud seemed on the verge of exposure, the
Alchemists discovered that harvesting and
manipulating their own species' cerebella could
provide the "magic" to make transmutation a reality.
Thus was their operation finally legitimized, at a
terrible cost.
Wild: You
may discard one non-encounter card from your hand and
take a different card of the same type (artifact,
reinforcement, flare, etc.) from any discard
pile.
(As Any
Player)
(Any
Phase)
Super:
When transmuting an attack card, you may exchange it for
another attack card of any value.
(As Any
Player)
(Any
Phase)
:alert
levels: Alien powers are
classified into three groups. The green-alert aliens are generally
the least complex, and thus are great powers for introducing new
players to the game. The yellow-alert powers are somewhat more
involved, while the red-alert aliens are the most complex. To play a
red-alert alien well often means being solid on all the game
mechanics, knowing the composition of the decks, understanding
meta-game dynamics and the general "Cosmic vibe," etc. In some
cases, an alien may be classified as red-alert because new players
who have not yet discovered how self-balancing Cosmic Encounter is
could perceive it as "broken." Newbies should not play as red-alert
aliens, nor play against them either. Thus, when inducting
a new player it is important that everyone at the table have a
green-alert alien. Green does not mean weak: A
common misconception among new players is that the green-alert
powers are the "beginner aliens" and thus are not as strong; but
this is not the case. The green aliens are simply the easier ones to
play successfully without much experience or knowledge about the
game. Veteran players use all three colors, and pay little attention
to the alert levels on the aliens they get to choose between.
:Alien:
Alien power, Cosmic Eons, designed by Bill Eberle & Peter
Olotka, illustrated by Felicia
Cano. Special component: Alien has 9
"trauma" essence cards. Rescue: If a captured ship
is released by something like Ship Zap or Super Symbiote,
discard the trauma card to the Alien's sheet.
Abducts Other Aliens
(Red)
You
have the power to Traumatize. At the start
of another player's turn, you may
use this power to capture one of
that player's ships from any colony where he or she has
at least two ships. Choose one trauma from your essence
card cache and place it facedown next to this sheet with
the captured ship on top. You may not hold more than one
of each player's ships captive at a time.
When
you are not the offense, before encounter cards are
selected, you may use this
power to release one or both of the main players' ships
you have captured on previous turns. Released ships join
the encounter, going to the hyperspace gate or the
targeted planet as appropriate (this may exceed any gate
limits), and the trauma card under each one is placed
facedown, unseen, near the corresponding main
player.
When a player with a trauma card reveals
an encounter card, he or she must also reveal that
trauma card and carry out its effect. Revealed trauma
cards are returned to you.
If this sheet is lost
or turned facedown, all ships you have captured go to
the warp and their trauma cards are returned to
you.
(Not
Offense)
(Optional)
(Start
Turn)
(Planning)
The
Aliens are actually quite child-like in their
boundless curiosity, and are unaware that their
simple abduction games are not
appreciated.
Wild: At
the start of your turn, you may ask one other player to
give you five ships which you will hold as hostages,
returning them at the end of your turn. Instead of
giving you the ships, the player may offer you anything
he or she could give you as part of a deal and/or agree
to receive cards from your hand. If you accept the deal,
all ships remain in place.
(Offense
Only)
(Start
Turn)
Super: You
may capture a player's ship even if you already have one
or more captives from that player. Place a trauma card
under each ship you capture.
(Not
Offense)
(Start
Turn)
:Alien
traumas: Cosmic Eons includes
nine half-size essence
cards representing traumas that the Alien's victims suffer
when they reveal their encounter card as a main player.
Abandonment Trauma
(3/9) Any or all of your allies may
return their involved ships to their colonies, or switch
them to the other side of the encounter.
Aggression Trauma
(8/9) You may play any attack cards in
your hand as reinforcements.
Depression Trauma
(9/9) If you reveal an attack card,
its value is 00.
Hallucinations Trauma
(6/9, 7/9) Your opponent may exchange
his or her revealed encounter card with any other
encounter card from his or her hand.
Hearing Voices Trauma
(4/9, 5/9) If all other players can
unanimously agree, they may update your reality in one
of the following ways: sending 1 of your colonies to the
warp, discarding half of the cards in your hand at
random, or giving you any 1 or 2 cards from the discard
pile.
Nervous Breakdown
Trauma
(2/9) You immediately lose the
encounter and collect no compensation. Proceed to the
resolution phase and discard the played cards
normally.
Victim Complex Trauma
(1/9) If both sides reveal attack
cards and you have the lower total, add 2 to your total.
Otherwise, add 2 to any compensation you are due,
subtract 2 from any compensation you owe, or lose no
ships if you fail to deal.
:Alien
Outpost: Space Station, Cosmic
Storm, designed by Fantasy Flight Games, illustrated by Henning Ludvigsen.
When you receive this card, draw one
card from the unused flare deck. Place the matching
alien sheet next to this card, then remove that flare
from the game. If the alien has Game
Setup text, is not allowed in this game, or
has an alternate victory condition, discard it and draw
again. While you have a colony on this planet, you have
this alien power in addition to any other alien(s) you
control.
(As Any
Player)
(Any
Phase)
:alien
powers: FAQ
clarification: Maintaining your alien power is based on
the number of home colonies you have, not the number you
have lost. You lose your alien power whenever you have
fewer than three home colonies in a five-planet game (or fewer than
two home colonies in a four-planet game).
Mandatory: If for some reason a mandatory power
cannot be used, there is no penalty to the player. For example, if
offensive Deuce is somehow reduced to exactly one encounter card, he
continues the encounter normally but just doesn't
use his power. Facets:
Some aliens have individual control of certain game components; see
facets of powers.
Power loss and alien identity: As players we tend
to think that we "are" the Clone or the Human (for example) during
the entire game. But from a rules and game text perspective, when
our power has been zapped or lost, then technically we are
not the alien. This is not explicitly stated in the rules,
but is implied by how flares work. For example, if you lose your
Human power, now you
can play the Wild Human flare, but cannot play Super Human.
Since it says right on the flare that the Wild is usable only
IF YOU ARE NOT THE HUMAN and the
Super is usable only IF YOU ARE THE HUMAN, then for
gameplay purposes this requires that, while you have lost your
power, you are not the Human — and therefore, the Human
isn't playing. This has an important implication for the
handful of flares that tell you to give them to the named alien
after use. While your power is zapped or lost, if you play your own
flare as a Wild and it is the give-to-owner kind (such as Wild
Human), you must discard it rather than "give it to yourself" —
because, until you get your power back, the Human "isn't playing"
right now. (Of course, the same thing applies if your give-to-owner
flare was played by someone else; they must discard it
because right now you are not that alien.) So if your Human
alien sheet is face down you cannot use Wild Human to turn your
encounter card into an attack 42 over and over again; sorry.
Power loss and residual effects: You can lose the
use of an alien power (temporarily, indefinitely, or permanently) in
a variety of ways: due to a Cosmic Zap, by losing too many home
colonies, or because of a game effect such as Changeling, Wild Chrysalis, Nanny, Wild Philanthropist,
Pentaform, Plant, Wild Plant, Reincarnator, Wild Reincarnator, or
Wild Sorcerer. A few
aliens have certain "residual" effects that still need to operate
regardless of power loss. It can be difficult to determine exactly
which parts of a power qualify, so the Cosmodex offers the following
categorizations to help identify the type of effect each
part of an alien power represents:
Zappable
effects are identified by the use
keyword. They are subject to Cosmic Zap and all other forms of
power loss.
Non-zappable effects are
self-contained alien power effects that do not have this keyword
and thus cannot be Cosmic Zapped, but are still subject to other
forms of power loss. Examples include Citadel placing a
citadel, Cryo
picking up his cold storage, Genius winning the
game, Macron
collecting double compensation or rewards, and Warrior getting
new tokens. Although the initiation of a non-zappable effect
cannot be canceled by a Cosmic Zap, if a zap earlier in the
encounter already canceled the alien power, then the
non-zappable effect cannot be initiated in the first place. In
other words, you still have to have your power available if you
want to initiate one of its non-zappable effects; but once you
have done so, that effect cannot be stopped by a Cosmic Zap. For
example, Cryo
cannot be zapped when taking his cold storage as a new hand; but
if he was already zapped earlier when trying to store a card,
then he cannot take his cold storage at all because his power
has already been lost.
Automatic effects
are scheduled, enqueued, or required by a previous use of some
other part of the game text, or needed for cleanup or to keep
the game engine running; these continue to take effect
regardless of power loss. Examples include Leviathan
increasing his total after launching a worldship, and later
sending that worldship back home, Loser affecting
the encounter outcome after declaring an upset during Planning,
Merchant
counting hired ships in Reveal that were played during Planning
and then returning or discarding those cards, Mirror reversing
digits after declaring the reversal earlier, Seeker making an
opponent honor the previously given answer, Deuce returning
one of the revealed cards to hand, Fungus carrying
his stacks around and then breaking them apart in the warp,
Grudge's
opponents discarding their grudge tokens, and Locust counting
devoured colonies even after the power is lost.
Cosmic
Zaps respond only to zappable effects, but then prevent
both zappable and non-zappable effects for the
rest of the encounter. Other forms of power loss prevent both
zappable and non-zappable effects.
Automatic effects always continue to function, either
because they were already scheduled/enqueued before the power was
lost or because they are necessary for the game engine to keep
working smoothly.
:Alliance:
Hazard, Cosmic Conflict, designed by Fantasy Flight Games.
You who? This is the only hazard that explicitly
uses the pronoun "you" (although other hazards imply it by virtue of
their imperative mood). The most reasonable inference here is that
Alliance is speaking to the offense, which implies an unwritten
general rule that hazard cards are drawn by the offense,
and also carried out by the offense in those few cases where one
player must perform a physical task (Alliance, Cosmic Upheaval, The Entropy Beast,
Mirror Universe).
Status of the ship: When Masochist places a
ship on this card and gives it away, he should consider that ship
permanently "lost"; otherwise his power would be useless for the
rest of the game. Ship
Zap and Super
Symbiote can remove the ship from the Alliance hazard;
this should probably serve to break the alliance and discard the
hazard card.
Place one of your ships from one of
your colonies on this card and give it to another
player. For the rest of the game, the two of you have an
alliance. When either of you is the main player in an
encounter, he or she must always invite his or her
ally.
(This Card Remains
in Play)
:alliance
dials: Cosmic Eons introduces six
alliance dials for use with the Hidden Alliances and
Foreign Aid
variants. These allow players to "dial in" their alliance decisions
or foreign aid commitments secretly, then reveal them
simultaneously. The dials are an homage to the combat wheels in
another Future Pastimes creation,
Dune
(a.k.a.
Rex: Final Days of an Empire
). Only six? Six dials are
actually sufficient for a game of up to eight players, since the
offense and defense do not need a dial. Lunatic:
Use a dial when allying against yourself as Lunatic. Plasma
Thrusters: When sending 5 ships as an ally, dial the
5-pointed star. Yin-Yang: As stated in the
rulesheet, Yin-Yang can dial the star and announce its intentions.
Or, it can use two dials, placing one face down at each end
of the hyperspace gate so it's clear which side each one applies to.
(If Yin-Yang offers Foreign Aid on one dial, its other dial should
show dashes.) Dial shortage: In rare circumstances,
players could sometimes find themselves one dial short (for example,
if Lunatic is in an eight-player game and every possible ally has
been invited). In such a case, the player with the special power or
circumstance can simply announce her alliance intentions when
everyone else's dial is face down on the table.
:Amoeba:
Alien power, base set, designed by Future Pastimes, illustrated by
Ryan Barger. FAQ rulings: Amoeba may ooze all of
his ships into the hyperspace gate if he wants to; this is
considered a single action, so Amoeba would not lose his power until
just after the ships were placed in the gate. Wild Amoeba may be
used by the defense to bring in more ships even if he has none on
the planet to begin with. Retooled gameplay: Eon's
Wild Amoeba did not limit the player to 4 ships added or removed.
Edited to eliminate the unnecessary and
inconsistent "rule on a card" that has unintended consequences when
the Amoeba player has some other way to gain a colony.
Unlimited Ship
Movement (Yellow)
You
have the power to Ooze. As a main player,
after encounter cards are selected but before they are
revealed, if you have at least one ship in the
encounter, you may use this
power to increase or decrease the number of ships you
have in the encounter. You may remove some or all of
your ships to your colonies, or you may add as many
ships as you want (even exceeding the normal maximum of
four) from any of your colonies. {If you win the encounter
but have no ships left in it, you cannot receive
a colony.}
(Main Player
Only)
(Optional)
(Planning)
Spawned
on a totally liquid world, Amoebas are highly
conscious of vibrations. Quick to withdraw from
danger, they are equally able to ooze menacingly
into combat when confronted with the proper
turbulences. Amoebas pity those who are less able to
respond to circumstance and will be sensitive Cosmic
masters.
Wild: As a
main player, before encounter cards are selected, you
may increase or decrease the number of your ships in the
encounter by up to four. This may result in you having
more than four ships in the hyperspace
gate.
(Main Player
Only)
(Planning)
Super: You
may use your power as an ally.
(Ally
Only)
(Planning)
:Anarchist:
Alien power, Cosmic Eons, designed by Bill Eberle & Peter
Olotka, illustrated by Felicia
Cano. Special component: Anarchist has 8
"disruption" essence cards.
Disrupts Rules (Red)
You
have the power of Chaos. As a main player,
whenever you lose an encounter or fail to make a deal,
use this power to disrupt a
game rule by revealing one disruption from your essence
card cache. At first you keep the card faceup on this
sheet and only you may use the disrupted
rule.
Once per encounter, you may allow another
player to move one of your faceup disruptions from this
sheet next to his or her alien sheet. Now both of you
may take advantage of that disrupted rule. Afterwards,
you immediately reveal another disruption from your
essence card cache.
After any other player has
used a disrupted rule, he or she immediately places that
disruption in the center of the playing area and then
everyone may use that disrupted rule. Disruptions are
cumulative. When you have revealed all 8 disruptions,
you win the game. You may still win the game via the
normal method.
(Main Player
Only)
(Mandatory)
(Resolution)
The
Anarchists take umbrage with the formalities of
interaction used over the eons, smothering their
opponents with unorthodoxy at every
juncture.
Wild: You
may rebel in one of the following ways: Instead of
accepting your destiny card, draw destiny again. Instead
of sending your ships to the warp, return them to your
colonies. Instead of seeing your winning offensive
allies' ships land on a planet, send them all to the
warp. Give this flare to the Anarchist after use (or
discard it, if the Anarchist isn't
playing).
(As Any
Player)
(Any
Phase)
Super: As
an ally, you may use your power to reveal a disruption
when your side loses the encounter or you are dismissed
because both main players must attempt to
deal.
(Ally
Only)
(Reveal)
:Anarchist
disruptions: Cosmic Eons includes
eight half-size essence
cards representing disruptions to primary game rules that
the Anarchist
activates as a result of losing encounters, failing to make deals,
and allowing other players to make earlier disruptions publicly
available.
Alliance Rule
Disruption
(8/8) You may ally without being
invited, but if you do and you lose ships to the warp,
you lose twice as many.
Compensation Rule
Disruption
(7/8) All or part of your compensation
may be converted to rewards.
When you should
receive a reward, you may take a card from any player in
compensation instead.
Destiny Rule Disruption
(6/8) Whenever you should draw from
the destiny deck, you may instead look through that deck
and choose which card to draw. Afterwards, shuffle the
destiny deck unless this disruption has become usable by
all players.
Gate Rule Disruption
(5/8) All limits on the total number
of ships that you can send to the hyperspace gate are
ignored, including specific limits (such as those of the
Macron).
Hand Rule Disruption
(4/8) When you have no attack cards,
you may discard your hand and draw a new one at any time
(potentially continuing your turn if you are the
offense).
Rewards Rule Disruption
(3/8) You have a right to see all
cards drawn from deck(s) for rewards.
Success Rule Disruption
(2/8) You do not need to be successful
on your first encounter to have a second
encounter.
Warp Rules Disruption
(1/8) When you should retrieve one or
more of your ships from the warp, you may retrieve all
of them.
:Angler:
Alien power, Cosmic Dominion, designed by Cedric Chin (as Fish),
illustrated by Felicia
Cano.
Fishes for Cards (Yellow)
You
have the power to Fish. As a main player,
before encounter cards are selected, you may
use this power to ask any player
on the opposing side if he or she has a specific card,
such as an attack 12, a regular negotiate card, or the
Virus flare. If that player has the card, he or she must
give it to you. Otherwise you must draw a card from the
deck. If you draw the card you asked for from the deck,
you may use this power a
second time during this encounter.
(Main Player
Only)
(Optional)
(Planning)
Developing
on a monaquatic homeworld filled with untold prey
species, the Anglers learned patience, stealth, and
selectivity – disciplines that serve these passive
predators well as they now take to the stars.
Assessing the aliens they encounter and luring
carefully selected victims to an early demise, the
Anglers often reel in valuable spoils to satiate
their growing needs.
Wild: You
may name a specific card (e.g., attack 12, regular
negotiate, or Virus flare). If any player has that card
and chooses to give it to you, give him or her this
flare. Otherwise, keep this flare and take one card at
random from the hand of any player.
(As Any
Player)
(Any
Phase)
Super: You
may use your power as an ally.
(Ally
Only)
(Planning)
:Animal:
Alien power, Cosmic Alliance, designed by Kevin Wilson, illustrated
by Ryan Barger. Edited to make the incorrect
prerequisite icon consistent with other similar powers.
Throws a Hearty Party
(Yellow)
You
have the power to Party. When you are not a
main player, each time a main player fails to invite you
to ally, use this power to
force that player to lose a ship of his or her choice to
the warp.
As a main player or ally, if your side
wins the encounter, use this
power to throw a celebration party. Each player on the
winning side, including you, may draw one card from the
deck.
({Varies})
(As Any
Player)
(Mandatory)
(Alliance)
(Resolution)
A
nomadic, carefree race, the Animals make it a point
to never miss a rockin' party anywhere in the Cosmos
– even if they have to throw it themselves while the
planet's owners are away. More than one race of
would-be Cosmic conquerors has returned from battle
only to find their homeworld's ecology wrecked and a
few hungover Animals dressed in stained togas
clambering into their ships with a bleary, "Hey man,
that's what you get for bogarting the
planet."
Wild: At
the start of any regroup phase, you may throw such a
wild party that it causes a cosmic quake. Give this
flare to the Animal after use (or discard it, if the
Animal isn't playing).
(As Any
Player)
(Regroup)
Super:
When you are not invited to ally by a main player, you
may force that player to lose two ships instead of
one.
(Not Main
Player)
(Alliance)
:Anti-Matter:
Alien power, base set, designed by Future Pastimes,. FAQ
ruling: When Wild or Super Anti-Matter prevents another
flare, it returns to the player's hand and cannot be played again
that encounter as that particular Wild or Super effect.
However, it does not count against the player's limit of one flare
per encounter, and (in theory) it could be played again in the same
encounter for its other effect (the Wild if the Super had been
prevented, and vice versa). See flares for more
discussion on this. Tip: Using a Cosmic Zap against
yourself essentially converts this power from mandatory to optional,
almost guaranteeing you a win in an attack-vs.-attack encounter.
Consider negotiating for Cosmic Zaps when you make deals, and don't
worry too much if the other players know you have one; the tension
this generates can work to your advantage. With experienced players,
keeping exactly two ships on an unrevealed tech might also make them
wonder if you're hiding a Cosmic Field
Generator. Retooled gameplay: Eon's
Super Anti-Matter prevented only Super flares.
Edited to avoid implying that card values are
modified. Link: [Corrected
power]
Lower Total Wins (Yellow)
You
have the power of Negation. As a main
player, after both you and your opponent reveal attack
cards, use this power to make
the lower total win. Furthermore, when this power is
used, your ships as well as
any offensive and defensive allies' ships are subtracted
from the appropriate side's total instead of
adding. Your opponent's total is otherwise figured
normally, however.
(Main Player
Only)
(Mandatory)
(Reveal)
Spewed
forth from a white hole, the worlds of Anti-Matter
careen through space negating whatever they
encounter. Opposed to the very existence of gross
mass, the Anti-Matter is dedicated to reducing all
opposition to less than nothing.
Wild: As a
main player or ally, when another player tries to use a
wild flare, you may prevent him or her from doing so.
Use this against only one flare per
encounter.
(Main Player or
Ally Only)
(Any
Phase)
Super:
When another player tries to use a super or wild flare,
you may prevent him or her from doing so. Use this
against only one flare per encounter.
(As Any
Player)
(Any
Phase)
:Arcade:
Alien power, Cosmic Storm, designed by Fantasy Flight Games,
illustrated by Felicia
Cano. Captured? "Pwning" is not defined as
capturing, but
probably should have been. If Arcade should pwn a hired ship from
Merchant, a horde
token from Horde, or
a ship introduced by Wild
Horde, you should probably treat that the same way as
capturing and discard the card, token, or ship.
Wins By Dominating
Encounters (Yellow)
You
have the power to Pwn. As a main player or
ally, after both main players reveal attack cards and
your side wins by 10 or more,
use this power to pwn one ship
from the opposing main player.
As a main player
or ally, after your side reveals an attack card and the
other main player reveals a negotiate card,
use this power to pwn one ship
from the opposing main player.
When you pwn a
ship, the opposing main player gives you one ship of his
or her choice from any of his or her colonies. That ship
is placed on this sheet. If there are three ships of the
same color or five total ships on this sheet, you
immediately win the game. You may still win the game via
the normal method.
(Main Player or
Ally Only)
(Mandatory)
(Resolution)
ZOMG
t3h Arc8d r t3h r0xx0rz!!!! +0+411y pwnt t3h n00bs!
Lawl j00 r t3h sux0rz!!
Wild: As a
main player or ally, if your side wins an encounter by
10 or more, you may force each player on the losing side
to send one additional ship from any of his or her
colonies to the warp.
(Main Player or
Ally Only)
(Resolution)
Super:
When using your power, you may choose to pwn a ship
belonging to an opposing ally instead of the opposing
main player.
(Main Player or
Ally Only)
(Resolution)
:Architect:
Alien power, Cosmic Eons, designed by Bill Eberle & Peter
Olotka, illustrated by Felicia
Cano. Normal player-color planets:
Architect can merge only the normal planets that actually match the
colors of players in the game. Extra planets used by effects such as
Explorer, Genesis Bomb, Moocher, and Pygmy are off limits.
Power loss: While the Architect has lost his power,
he does not get to keep doubling his totals. "Towers are permanent"
means only that the towers are not physically disassembled.
Stacks Planets (Red)
You
have the power to Build Towers. When you
win as a main player, at the end of the encounter
use this power to create or
expand a tower in your opponent's system. If you do not
already have a tower in that system, choose two of that
system's planets (if the targeted planet is in that
system, it must be one of your choices). Merge those two
planets together, placing all ships from both on the top
of the two-level tower. If you already have a tower in
the opponent's system, then instead select another
planet in that system and merge it into the tower as a
new level, placing its ships on top.
Only normal
player-color planets can be merged. Do not create a
merged planet using planets with unused player colors or
that would exceed any limits, such as more than one
entanglement token, etc.
As a main player, after
encounter cards are revealed,
use this power to double your
total if you have a tower of two or more levels in the
opponent's system, a tower of three or more levels in a
system adjacent to the opponent's system, or a tower of
four or more levels in any system.
Each tower
counts as a single planet. Towers are permanent, even if
you lose the use of them. If any player cannot gain
enough foreign colonies to win the game due to
insufficient foreign planets, you win the
game.
(Main Player
Only)
(Mandatory)
(Reveal)
(Resolution)
Skilled
builders, the Architects now seek to drag the works
of others into their
constructions.
Wild: As a
main player, after encounter cards are revealed, you may
discard one attack card from your hand and then add 1
for each card below it in its discard pile to your
total. Give this flare to the Architect after use (or
discard it, if the Architect isn't
playing).
(Main Player
Only)
(Reveal)
Super:
When using your power, you may create or expand a tower
in your own system instead of your opponent's
system.
(Main Player
Only)
(Resolution)
:Aristocrat:
Alien power, Cosmic Dominion, designed by Future Pastimes, revised
by the fans, illustrated by Andrew Olson. Retooled
gameplay: Eon's Aristocrat did not specify a time limit
for choosing your starting hand, and did not protect other players'
Super flares from being removed from the game. Eon's Wild Aristocrat
did not require any shuffling. Eon's Super Aristocrat was completely
different: it allowed the player to choose any seven cards from the
deck when he needed to draw a new hand.
Picks Hand and Draws Extra
Flares (Red)
Game
Setup: After flares are added to the deck
but before hands are dealt, you have one minute to look
through the deck. Take any eight cards (except the
Aristocrat flare) to form your starting hand, and then
re-shuffle the deck.
You have the power
of Privilege. As a main player, any time
before encounter cards are selected, you may
use this power to draw a flare
from the unused flare deck and add it to your hand.
Then, if you have two or more flares in your hand that
do not match any players' alien powers, you must choose
one of those unmatched flares and remove it from the
game. The flares you remove from the game cannot be
drawn again.
(Main Player
Only)
(Optional)
(Start
Turn)
(Regroup)
(Destiny)
(Launch)
(Alliance)
(Planning)
Beginning
life with every advantage, the Aristocrats expect
deference and respect from others. Drawing on a
storehouse of great wealth from their feudal
planet-estates, they now turn their majestic gaze
upon the squabbling villeins of
space.
Wild: At
the start of any encounter, you may take one minute to
look through the deck, choose one card, and add it to
your hand. Then, shuffle the discard pile together with
the deck to form a new deck. Give this flare to the
Aristocrat after use (or discard it, if the Aristocrat
isn't playing).
(As Any
Player)
(Regroup)
Super:
When using your power, instead of drawing one flare you
may discard this flare either to draw three, or to take
one minute to look through the unused flare deck and
choose any one flare, shuffling the flare deck
afterwards.
(Main Player
Only)
(Planning)
:artifact
cards: Card type; base set,
Cosmic Incursion, Cosmic Alliance, and Cosmic Dominion; designed
variously by Future Pastimes, Mayfair Games, Fantasy Flight Games,
and the fans. Unlike flares, artifacts are played once and then
discarded. There is no limit to the number of times an artifact can
be used during an encounter. For example, an artifact could be
played, discarded, salvaged by Vulch, played again,
salvaged again by Space
Junk, played yet again, and then faked by Mesmer (more than
once). List: As of Cosmic Eons, the artifacts in
the FFG edition of the game are Card Zap, Cosmic Zap, Emotion
Control, Finder, Force Field, Hand Zap, Ionic Gas, Mobius Tubes,
Omni-Zap, Plague, Quash, Rebirth, Ship Zap, Solar Wind, Space Junk,
and Victory Boon. See also card distribution.
Card Zap
Negates Cards. Play
at any time to negate a flare or artifact card just as a
player attempts to use it. The flare or artifact must
then be discarded.
(As Any
Player)
(Start
Turn)(Regroup)(Destiny)(Launch)(Alliance)(Planning)(Reveal)(Resolution)
Cosmic Zap
Stops Powers. Play at
any time to cancel one use of
any alien's power, including your own. That power may
not be used again during the current
encounter.
(As Any
Player)
(Start
Turn)(Regroup)(Destiny)(Launch)(Alliance)(Planning)(Reveal)(Resolution)
Emotion Control
Alters Attack. Play
after encounter cards are revealed to treat all attack
cards played this encounter as negotiate cards. The main
players must then attempt to make a
deal.
(As Any
Player)
(Reveal)
Finder
Searches for Card.
Play at any time. Choose another player and name a
specific card, such as "attack 40," "Clone flare," or
"Plague." Look at the chosen player's hand. If the named
card is in his or her hand, you may take
it.
(As Any
Player)
(Start
Turn)(Regroup)(Destiny)(Launch)(Alliance)(Planning)(Reveal)(Resolution)
Force Field
Stops Allies. Play
after alliances are formed to cancel the alliances of
any or all players. Canceled allies return their ships
to any of their colonies.
(As Any
Player)
(Alliance)
Hand Zap
Draws New Hand. Play
at the start of any encounter and choose a player (even
yourself). That player discards his or her entire hand
and draws a new hand of eight cards. No cards may be
played in response to this artifact except for cards
that cancel its effect.
(As Any
Player)
(Regroup)
Ionic Gas
Stops Compensation and
Rewards. Play after the winner of an
encounter is determined. No compensation or rewards may
be collected this encounter.
(As Any
Player)
(Resolution)
Mobius Tubes
Frees Ships. Play at
the start of your encounter to release all players'
ships from the warp. Freed ships return to any of their
owners' colonies.
(Offense
Only)
(Regroup)
Omni-Zap
Zaps Anything. Play
at any time to copy the effect of any other Zap artifact
you name, or to cancel and discard any one card that was
just played or revealed. If the encounter or an alien
power is now unplayable (e.g., by zapping a destiny,
encounter, claw, or schizoid card) then an appropriate
replacement is drawn or played (drawing a new hand if
necessary).
After use, remove one of your ships
from the game or send three of your ships to the
warp.
(As Any
Player)
(Start
Turn)(Regroup)(Destiny)(Launch)(Alliance)(Planning)(Reveal)(Resolution)
Plague
Harms Player. Play at
the start of any encounter and choose a player (even
yourself). That player loses three ships of his or her
choice to the warp and must discard one card of each
type (attack, negotiate, morph, artifact, flare, etc.)
from his or her hand.
(As Any
Player)
(Regroup)
Quash
Kills Deal. Play
after a deal is made to cancel the deal. The dealing
players suffer the penalties for a failed
deal.
(As Any
Player)
(Resolution)
Rebirth
Regains Home
Colonies. Play at the start of any
encounter and choose a player (even yourself). That
player may place one or more of his or her ships, from
his or her colonies, onto any planet(s) in his or her
home system.
(As Any
Player)
(Regroup)
Ship Zap
Sends Ship to Warp.
Play at any time. Send to the warp any one ship from
anywhere in play, or one that has been removed from the
game. (If you remove the offense's last ship from the
hyperspace gate, the offense continues with zero
ships.)
(As Any
Player)
(Start
Turn)(Regroup)(Destiny)(Launch)(Alliance)(Planning)(Reveal)(Resolution)
Solar Wind
Reverses Rewards.
Play after encounter cards are revealed. Gains for
allies are reversed: defensive allies land on the
targeted planet if their side wins, while offensive
allies receive rewards if their side wins. (If gains
were already reversed, they revert to normal
instead.)
(As Any
Player)
(Reveal)
Space Junk
Takes Top Discard.
Play at any time and choose a player (even yourself).
That player takes the top card of the discard pile and
adds it to his or her hand. When several cards go into
the discard pile at the same time, you may select any
one of them for the chosen player to
take.
(As Any
Player)
(Start
Turn)(Regroup)(Destiny)(Launch)(Alliance)(Planning)(Reveal)(Resolution)
Victory Boon
Rewards Defender.
Play after the defense wins an encounter. The defense
receives rewards equal to the number of his or her ships
in the encounter.
(As Any
Player)
(Resolution)
:Assassin:
FFG revised Eon's original Assassin alien power and published it
under the less controversial name of Shadow.
Link: [Assassin]
:Assistant:
Alien power, Cosmic Eons, designed by Bill Eberle & Peter
Olotka, illustrated by Felicia
Cano. Special component: Assistant has 6
"help" essence cards. Zapped help: If you are
zapped when a player returns a help card to you, no help is provided
and no rewards are drawn, but the help card is still discarded to
your sheet. (You are not using your power to allow the card to be
returned; you are using it to provide the help after the
card is returned.)
Makes Players Better
(Yellow)
You
have the power to Be Helpful. As a main
player or ally, after alliances are formed but before
encounter cards are selected,
use this power if there are
any other player(s) on your side of the encounter. Give
one help card from your essence card cache to one of
those players and then gain one reward. A player who has
been given a help card can keep it faceup or facedown
and look at it.
Other players may give their help
cards back to you per the timing on the help card. When
they do, use this power to
provide the help as instructed; then either gain one
reward or, if you can immediately use the help card for
yourself, you may do so before placing the card faceup
in the unavailable pile.
(As Any
Player)
(Mandatory)
(Start
Turn)(Regroup)(Destiny)(Launch)(Alliance)(Planning)(Reveal)(Resolution)
Mastering
the art of obscurity, the Assistants seem to be
omnipresent, relentlessly. Their inferior status is
a veil from which they now quietly acquire a vast
array of unnoticed resources.
Wild: You
may recolonize one of your home planets using one or
more of your ships in the warp. Give this flare to the
Assistant after use (or discard it, if the Assistant
isn't playing).
(As Any
Player)
(Any
Phase)
Super:
When a help card is returned to you, you may immediately
discard a card from your essence card cache and replace
it with the returned card.
(As Any
Player)
(Any
Phase)
:Assistant
helps: Cosmic Eons includes six
half-size essence
cards representing help that the Assistant will provide
to others as a thank-you for being allied together (and that the
Assistant can copy for herself).
Lost Territory Help
(1/6) At any time, if you have lost a
home colony, the Assistant will recolonize one of your
home planets using up to 3 of your ships from your other
colonies and/or the warp per your instructions.
Messy Colonies Help
(4/6) At any time, the Assistant will
redistribute your ships among your colonies per your
instructions.
Messy Hand Help
(3/6) When you draw a new hand, the
Assistant will pre-screen it for you, discarding some of
the cards per your instructions, returning to you a more
efficient and useful hand.
Needed Card Help
(5/6) At any time, the Assistant will
find a card you name in the discard pile and give it to
you.
Ship Scarcity Help
(2/6) At any time, the Assistant will
retrieve any or all of your ships from the warp per your
instructions.
Unwilling Ally Help
(6/6) After a player other than the
Assistant has chosen whether or not to ally and/or how
many ships to bring, the Assistant will override that
player's decision per your instructions.
:at
random: Certain situations, such
as collecting compensation, allow cards to be taken "at random" from
another player. Since the reward cards from the reward deck are
specifically designed to tempt players into targeting those cards
and risking taking a Rift card, this phrase should be understood to
mean "without seeing the faces of the cards." Thus, during any
random selection, a player is always allowed to see the backs of the
cards and to choose to select cosmic-back and/or reward-back cards
as he sees fit. For example, if you are affected by Wild Magician and have
encounter cards with both kinds of card backs, you can potentially
use those card backs to make sure you know which of your encounter
cards you are choosing "at random."
:attack
cards: Card type; encounter card;
base set, Cosmic Incursion, Cosmic Alliance, and Cosmic Dominion;
designed by Future Pastimes; variable attack cards designed by the
fans. Values: Standard: –07, –04, –01, 00, 01, 02,
04 through 20, 23, 30, and 40. Variable: 02/20, 03/30, 12/21, and 21/12. See also card distribution.
Variable attack cards have a large, black
normal value as well as a smaller, white
transposed value. When a hazard warning has
been drawn, the variable attack card switches to the transposed
value upon being revealed as an encounter card. This happens before
any other game effects that might modify the card's value or card
type.
Attack –07 — Attack 40
Opposed by Attack:
Higher total (ships + card) wins. Opposed by
Negotiate: Wins, but opponent collects
compensation.
Attack 02/20,
Attack 03/30,
Attack 12/21,
Attack 21/12
Becomes [20/30/21/12] when revealed if
any destiny card(s) with a hazard warning were drawn
this encounter. Opposed by Attack:
Higher total wins. Opposed by
Negotiate: Wins, but opponent collects
compensation.
:attack
bug: Several alien powers and
cards use the word "attack" in a nonstandard way that has nothing to
do with attack cards. This use of the word is not really
appropriate since players might reveal negotiate cards, and it
should not be interpreted as a requirement that somebody actually be
attacking (with an attack card) in order to use these game
effects. The Cosmodex presents these powers and cards with
appropriate revisions to conform to existing wording conventions.
The use of "attacking ships" on Gluon Mines and Wild Guerrilla really
means opposing ships. On Citadel, Leviathan, and Plasma Thrusters, the
planet being "attacked" is really the planet being targeted
(a convention established on Bully, Lunar Cannon, and Mite). Shadow says "who the
offense chooses to attack" when it really means whom the offense
chooses to encounter.
:awards and
accolades: Cosmic Encounter has a
long history of awards dating back to 1980, if not earlier. Although
these distinctions have been granted to various editions, the core
gameplay and essential alien powers have not changed much over the
decades and thus it seems appropriate to treat all of these honors
as germane to the current edition.
• Winner: The Dice Tower's
Best Game 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015
• Nominee: 2014
Golden Geek Award (Best Board Game Expansion: Cosmic Dominion)
•
Nominee: 2009 Golden Geek Award (Best Board Game
Artwork/Presentation)
• Nominee: 2009 Golden Geek Award (Best
Gamers' Board Game)
• Winner: Adventure Gaming Hall of Fame,
Origins 1997
• Selected: Games 200 Games Magazine
1996
• Selected: Games 100 Games Magazine "Best Games"
'80, '81, '82, '83, '84, '85, '86, '93
• Voted: Best Science
Fiction Board Game 1992 Origins Awards
• Voted: Best Science
Fiction Board Game 1982 Games Day, London
• Voted: Best Science
Fiction Board Game 1980, 1981 The Space Gamer Magazine
•
Voted: 2nd Best Family Game (after
Monopoly
) 1980, 1981 Games Day, London
• Selected:
Honorable Mention "Top Ten Games" 1980 Omni Magazine
•
Selected: The Siggins Hall of Fame by Mike Siggins, editor of Sumo's
Karaoke Club games magazine
• Made the top-10 "Desert Island
Games" lists of
Peter Sarrett
,
Kris Gould
,
Mike Gray
, and countless others
Selected
Quotations
• Games Magazine: "One of the
most original games of modern times."
•
Sid Sackson
, prolific designer of
Acquire
,
Can't Stop
, and
Focus a.k.a. Domination
: "So much fun you forget how strategic a game it
really is."
•
Richard Garfield
, designer of
Magic: The Gathering
and
Robo Rally
: "Though there are about a dozen games that have
directly influenced Magic in one way or another, the game's
most influential ancestor is a game for which I have no end of
respect: Cosmic Encounter."
•
Peter Sarrett
, editor of The Game Report: "I spent many, many
long nights playing Eon Cosmic in college when I should have been
studying."
•
Kris Gould
, founder of WATTSALPOAG Games:
"This is probably the game I have played most in my lifetime, and I
still find it fresh and exciting. There are so many different
combinations of powers, tactics, and unexpected changes of fortune
that it will never go stale."
• Jeff
Albertson, comic book guy: "Best game ever!" (Okay, I made that one
up.)
:Bandit:
Alien power, Cosmic Alliance, designed by Kevin Wilson, illustrated
by Ryan Barger. Edited for terminology (there is no
such thing as an "encounter deck").
"Takes a Spin" Each
Turn (Red)
You
have the power to Take a Spin. At the start
of each player's turn, including your own,
use this power to reveal the
top three cards of the {encounter}
deck. If all three revealed cards have different card
types (negotiate, attack, reinforcement, etc.), discard
a card of your choice from your hand. If two of the
revealed cards have the same card type, you may add any
one of the revealed cards to your hand. If all three
revealed cards have the same card type, you may add any
or all of the revealed cards to your hand, and all other
players must discard all cards of that card type from
their hands. After you take a spin, discard any revealed
cards that are not added to your hand.
(As Any
Player)
(Mandatory)
(Start
Turn)
Creatures
of risk, the one-armed Bandits roam the Cosmos
looking for opportunities. However, where other
aliens would shy away from near-impossible odds, the
Bandits thrive on them. They can often be heard
spouting their philosophy – "Come on, take a chance.
What do you have to lose?"
Wild: At
the start of any player's turn, you may reveal and
discard the top card of the deck. If it is a negotiate
card, you immediately receive four rewards. Otherwise,
nothing happens.
(As Any
Player)
(Start
Turn)
Super:
After spinning, you may discard one revealed card and
reveal the top card of the deck to replace it before
resolving your spin.
(As Any
Player)
(Start
Turn)
:Barbarian:
Alien power, base set, designed by Alan Emrich, illustrated by Ryan
Barger. Noteworthy interaction: Barbarian
devastates Genius,
essentially making its power useless. Retooled
gameplay: Emrich's version was optional and worked as
the offense or an offensive ally, but allowed only one card to be
kept. Edited to clarify the timing of Wild
Barbarian's decision.
Destroys Opponent's
Hand (Green)
You
have the power to Loot and Pillage. As the
offense, after you win an encounter but before
compensation (if any) is collected,
use this power to loot your
opponent's cards. Take your opponent's hand and look at
it. For each ship you have in the encounter, you may
choose one card from your opponent's hand and add it to
your own. Afterwards, discard the remainder of your
opponent's hand.
(Offense
Only)
(Mandatory)
(Resolution)
A
savage race from a harsh solar system, the
Barbarians roared out into the Cosmos as soon as
they discovered space flight. They have crushed many
civilizations before them, carelessly tossing aside
priceless cultural treasures in their endless quest
for glory, battle, and the lamentations of their
enemies.
Wild: When
gaining compensation or rewards, you may look at all of the cards you
receive and then
discard any of them that you do not want, without
replacing them.
(Main Player or
Ally Only)
(Resolution)
Super: You
may use your power as an offensive ally if your side
wins, looting the opposing main player's
cards.
(Offensive Ally
Only)
(Resolution)
:base:
This term, which appears in the rulebook under the rules for making
a deal, is what a colony was called in previous
editions.
:Big Space
Laser: Space Station, Cosmic
Storm, designed by Fantasy Flight Games, illustrated by Henning Ludvigsen.
As a main player, after you reveal an
attack card, you may add 10 to your total if there are
no allies on your side.
(Main Player
Only)
(Reveal)
:Black
Hole: Hazard, Cosmic Conflict,
designed by Fantasy Flight Games.
During this encounter, ships that would
be lost to the warp are instead removed from the game. A
player cannot have fewer ships left in the game than the
number of foreign colonies required to win. Any ships
lost that would reduce a player below this number are
sent to the warp as usual.
:Bleeding
Heart: Alien power, Cosmic Eons,
designed by Bill Eberle & Peter Olotka, illustrated by Felicia
Cano. Infinite loop: When Bleeding Heart
declares peace and Warhawk is a main
player, card values will infinitely oscillate between negotiate and
attack 00. (A similar issue occurs with The Cult.) While one
might think the Timing
Conflicts rule would prevent these loops, it actually
does not since Warhawk and the other power are never trying to have
their effect at exactly the same time.
Low Attacks Become
Negotiates (Green)
You
have the power of Rapport. On any
encounter, before allies are invited, you
may use this power to say "Let
there be peace!" If you do, all attack cards with a
value of 10 or lower become negotiate cards when
revealed and all compensation is
doubled.
(As Any
Player)
(Optional)
(Alliance)
The
Bleeding Hearts are an irresistibly beautiful
species. All life and non-life forms they have
encountered are awed and powerless in the presence
of their beauty and the haunting aura of peace they
release whenever aliens encounter each other. Their
goal is to re-balance encounters between aliens and
to create more peaceful Cosmic Universes where
consciousness of every kind dedicates itself to
appreciating the beauty of peaceful
encounters.
Wild:
Before allies are invited, you may declare "Peace Out!"
and all attack cards with a value of 10 or higher become
negotiate cards when revealed.
(As Any
Player)
(Alliance)
Super:
When you fail to make a deal, your opponent's ship loss
is doubled.
(Main Player
Only)
(Resolution)
:Boomerang:
FFG has not (as of Cosmic Eons) republished Eon's original Boomerang
alien power, but many players feel that Invader serves as a
replacement for Boomerang. Link: [Boomerang]
:Booster:
Alien power, Escape Velocity promo, designed by Jack Reda,
illustrated by Felicia Cano. Promotional Alien: In
a manner reminiscent of the initial version of Demon, this "Print on
Demand" alien/flare set was given to participants in the Cosmic
Encounter Galactic Championship held at Escape Velocity 2019 in
Washington, DC. Production issues: Because of the
limitations of the PoD process and/or economic considerations, there
are noticeable differences in feel, shape, and size compared to
normal powers and flares. The alien sheet is too long and too wide,
has the wrong aspect ratio and artwork zoom, and bleeds off the edge
more than it should. The flare appears to be the proper size, but
its corners are rounded differently (much closer to square) and the
two copies seen by the Cosmodex's semi-trained human minion both had
noticeably miscut borders on their backs, making them stand out
rather than blend in with other cosmic-back cards. Booster's
physical assets therefore are not conducive to mixing in with "real"
game components. Edited to fix the launch bug and mandatory flare bug,
to address the case where Booster should discard two cards but has
only one, for clarity, and for capitalization and wording
conventions.
Sheds Cards When
Launching (Green)
You
have the power of Escape Velocity. {When you launch ships as
the offense or an ally,} As the offense or an
ally, use this
power when you send ships
into the encounter. If you {launch} send one or two
ships, discard the same number of cards from your hand
({if you have
any} or
one if you have only one). If you {launch} send three or more
ships, draw one card from
the deck to add to your hand, then discard
one card.
(Offense or Ally
Only)
(Mandatory)
(Launch)
(Alliance)
Incredibly
fast-moving Boosters are launched into low orbit
upon birth. Dead weight is shed immediately, and
only the most useful resources or tantalizing swag
gets harnessed for the good of all Boosters. Now,
the Boosters have perfected the leap from
imagination to reality, leaving their most
challenging competitors staggering around in their
Cosmic
dust.
Wild:
As a main player or ally,
after alliances are formed, you may force an
ally (other than yourself) to discard a card from his or
her hand at random
for each ship he or she
has in the encounter.
(Main Player or
Ally Only)
(Alliance)
Super:
As an ally, when
you {launch}
send three or more
ships into the
encounter, you
may draw that
number of cards from the deck. Afterwards, you may
discard up to the same
number.
(Ally
Only)
(Alliance)
:Bride:
Alien power, Cosmic Dominion, designed by Lila Boutin, illustrated
by Felicia
Cano. Captured? Bride receiving a ship as a
wedding ring is not defined as capturing. However,
this ring probably should be a "real" ship. If the Bride receives a
hired ship from Merchant, a horde
token from Horde, or
a ship introduced by Wild
Horde, you should probably treat that the same way as
capturing and discard the card, token, or ship. And the groom would
still be required to place a "real" ring on the Bride's sheet.
Marries Players (Yellow)
You
have the power to Marry. As a main player,
before allies are invited, you may
use this power to "marry" your
opponent. That player must choose one of his or her
ships and place it on this sheet. You may be married to
only one player at a time.
You and your "spouse"
may ally with each other without being invited and may
show each other any cards in your hands at any time.
Once per encounter, you may
use this power to allow a trade of
one card each from your hand and your spouse's
hand.
You may "divorce" your spouse at any time
by turning that player's ship on your sheet upside-down
and taking half of the cards in his or her hand at
random (rounded down) as "alimony." You may not remarry
a player you previously divorced. If this sheet is lost
or turned facedown, you must divorce your current spouse
without receiving alimony.
(As Any
Player)
(Optional)
(Start
Turn)(Regroup)(Destiny)(Launch)(Alliance)(Planning)(Reveal)(Resolution)
The
Bride has left a trail of broken circulatory pumps
and legal hijinks across the Cosmos, and yet her
allure is impossible to resist. The Bride, however,
eschews the social pressure of the present and
rejects wallowing in the past as she drifts through
space longing for a fantasy future with her true
soulmate, be it a low-life Hate or a noble
Ethic.
Wild: As
the defense, after the offense launches ships, you may
run away from the encounter. The offense sends his or
her ships from the gate to any one of his or her home
planets, or any one unoccupied foreign planet, then ends
his or her turn.
(Defense
Only)
(Launch)
Super: You
may remarry an opponent that you previously divorced.
Turn that player's ship on your sheet faceup. Do not
receive alimony from that opponent
again.
(Main Player
Only)
(Destiny)
(Launch)
:Brute:
Alien power, Cosmic Storm, designed by Fantasy Flight Games,
illustrated by Andrew Olson. Design note: Based on
a tweet from Mr. Olson, it appears that Brute was originally called
"Crusher" when it was sent to him for artwork.
Edited to clarify that Super Brute forces each
player to send one of his own ships to the warp.
Threatens Opponent's
Ships (Yellow)
You
have the power to Threaten. As a main
player or ally, after alliances are formed, you
may use this power to threaten
one player on the opposing side. That player must either
allow you to look at his or her hand of cards and take
one card of your choice, or remove all of his or her
ships from the encounter. Removed ships return to any of
that player's colonies.
If all of a main player's
ships are removed, he or she continues the encounter
with zero ships. If all of an ally's ships are removed,
he or she is no longer an ally.
(Main Player or
Ally Only)
(Optional)
(Alliance)
What
the Brutes lack in subtlety, they make up for in
simplicity. They tend to be an aggressive race, with
blunt, thuggish tactics where they can use their
strength and massive frames to intimidate any
opposition in their way.
Wild: As a
main player or ally, before compensation or defender
rewards are collected, you may limit all players'
compensation and rewards to one.
(Main Player or
Ally Only)
(Resolution)
Super: As
the offense, after alliances are formed, you may force
the defense and each of his or her allies to send one
of their own
ships from the
encounter to the warp.
(Offense
Only)
(Alliance)
:bugs:
There are some recurring issues in this edition of the game that
affect multiple powers or cards. To avoid describing the problem
anew every time, each correction simply references the main entry
describing the issue. These include the attack bug (misuse of
the word in a non-attack context), the defensive ally bug
(leaks caused by defensively allied ships being placed on the table
instead of the hyperspace gate), the launch bug (game
effects trying to include allies when there can't be any
allies), the main player
bug (treating allies like a main player), the mandatory flare bug
(flares written in the imperative), the recurrent flare bug
(flares written as if Eon's unlimited re-use still applied), and the
rewards bug
(mislabeling and incomplete on-card definitions of rewards).
:Bully:
Alien power, Cosmic Incursion, designed by Future Pastimes,
illustrated by Ryan Barger. Retooled gameplay:
Eon's Wild Bully was usable even when the player was not involved in
the encounter. Edited to avoid suggesting that
Bully increases the number of ships going to the warp when something
like Lunatic, Spiff, or Sting is in play; to
fix the coexistence
bug; and to prevent Wild Bully's target from choosing
ships that he is going to lose anyway (cf. Gambler).
Selects Losing Ships
(Yellow)
You
have the power to Intimidate. As a main
player, after winning an encounter in which both players
revealed attack cards, you may
use this power to choose which
ships your opponent must lose. Your opponent still loses
the same number of ships he or she had in the encounter,
but you take them from anywhere. {If you are the offense
and leave any of your opponent's ships on the
target planet, your ships coexist there with
your opponent's unless another game effect
prevents you from doing so, in which case you do
not receive a colony and must return your ships
to your other colonies.} If you are
the defense, any of your opponent's ships that you leave
in the hyperspace gate return to his or her other
colonies.
(Main Player
Only)
(Optional)
(Resolution)
Habitually
cruel to those who show signs of weakness, the Bully
exploits any opportunity to run roughshod over its
opponents. The false courage that is the hallmark of
the Bully strikes terror into the less aggressive
races of the Universe, and many flee rather than
risk a confrontation. If none stand in its way, the
Bully seeks to trample its way to Cosmic
dominance.
Wild: As a
main player, when your opponent reveals a negotiate
card, you may use this flare. That player must either
immediately give you a colony on a planet of your choice
where he or she has a ship or else lose two ships of his
or her choice to the warp. These lost ships may not be
involved in the encounter. Cards changed to
negotiate cards (such as by Emotion Control) still
trigger this effect.
(Main Player
Only)
(Reveal)
Super: You
may use your power on opposing allies.
(Main Player
Only)
(Resolution)
:Bulwark:
Alien power, Cosmic Storm, designed by Fantasy Flight Games,
illustrated by Felicia
Cano. Unanswered
questions: What happens in situations
covered by the third paragraph if it is not possible for the saved
ships to remain in place? What happens in situations where the
number of ships to be lost is not known in advance (e.g., Wrack)?
What if the player wants to use a voluntary ship-loss effect such as
Wild Kamikaze? Does the Super flare really only work for discards of
exactly one card? The latter half of the sentence seems to think
not.
Reduces Ships Lost to
One (Green)
You
have the power of Resilience. As the
offense or an ally, whenever you would lose ships to the
warp that are involved in an encounter,
use this power to send only
one of the involved ships to the warp. The other ships
involved in the encounter are returned to any of your
colonies.
As the defense, whenever you would lose
ships to the warp that are involved in an encounter,
use this power to send only
one of the involved ships to the warp. The other ships
involved in the encounter remain on the
colony.
Whenever you would lose ships to the warp
as a result of any other game effect,
use this power to reduce the
number of ships lost to one.
(As Any
Player)
(Mandatory)
(Start
Turn)(Regroup)(Destiny)(Launch)(Alliance)(Planning)(Reveal)(Resolution)
The
toughness of the Bulwarks is legendary. They think
nothing of facing overwhelming odds or throwing
themselves into the thick of battle, knowing they
have the ability to endure nearly any hardship. The
Bulwarks can also be as thick-headed as they are
thick-skinned.
Wild: As a
main player, when you would send more than one ship to
the warp, you may reduce the number of ships sent to
one. Ships not sent to the warp return to your other
colonies.
(Main Player
Only)
(Any
Phase)
Super:
When you would discard a card at random or another
player would collect compensation from you, you may
choose which cards to discard or give that player as
compensation.
(As Any
Player)
(Any
Phase)
:Butler:
Alien power, Cosmic Alliance, designed by Future Pastimes,
illustrated by Ryan Barger. Gate aiming: Butler is
indeed allowed to position the gate where the offense already has a
colony, as long as this creates a legal encounter in
accordance with the destiny draw (Encounter magazine
v1n5p8). Successful: The successful encounter decreed to
apply to the original offense by the Wild Butler revision is simply
that: a success. The delegated player's win or deal is not
considered a win or deal for the original player, but the original
player is "successful" for the purpose of continuing his turn.
Retooled gameplay: Eon's Butler collected tips in
Lucre rather than cards, and when passing out players' cards was
able to look at any of them that were purchased with Lucre. Eon's
Wild Butler was completely different: it had an effect similar to
Classic Wild Filch that allowed secretly throwing other players'
ships into the warp. Edited to make the base power
work correctly when the offense draws his own color, to prevent Wild
Butler from allowing the player to ally against himself if he is the
defense, to eliminate confusion from the incorrect statement about
play resuming from where it left off, and to clarify that the
surrogate offense's outcome affects whether the original offense may
continue his turn. Links: [Corrected
power] [Corrected
flare] [Unofficial classic
Eon flare]
Gets Cards for Chores
(Yellow)
You
have the power to Serve. You flip the
destiny card, aim the hyperspace gate, launch ships, and
perform all other manually demeaning chores for the
offense after he or she signals the start of his or her
encounter. Unless the offense gives you a tip of one
card at random from his or her hand, you may
use this power to perform your
choice of either of the following: aim the hyperspace
gate at any planet in the {defense's}
targeted system
where a legal encounter can be had or launch the
offense's ships from any of his or her colonies (but
only as many ships as the offense specifies).
If
the offense does tip you, you must obey his or her
wishes with regard to your chores for the rest of the
encounter. You must perform certain functions without
reward, such as dealing out cards that a player is
entitled to. You must be courteous, and a tip of one
card is all that you may collect per
encounter.
(Not
Offense)
(Optional)
(Launch)
"To
serve is to live." The motto of the house of Butt
guides its family as they build for their true inner
hope: to turn the Cosmic tables and rule
forever.
Wild: As
the offense, at the start of your regroup phase, you may
choose another player to be the offense for this
encounter by saying "After you, I insist." The encounter
is then carried out as usual, except that player must
invite you to ally with him or her if possible. {After the encounter
ends, play resumes from where it left
off.} If that player wins or
deals, it counts as a success for
you.
(Offense
Only)
(Regroup)
Super: You
may demand a tip of two cards instead of
one.
(Not
Offense)
(Launch)
:bystanders:
This term is used to describe colonies or ships that are not
participating in an encounter, even though they are on a planet
where an encounter is taking place. For example, if Red has an
encounter against Green on a planet that also hosts a Yellow colony,
the ships in the Yellow colony are just bystanders; for all
practical purposes they simply "do not exist" where the encounter is
concerned (except, of course, in unusual circumstances like Xenophile counting the
Yellow colony for his power or Filth landing on that
planet as the result of the encounter and sending Yellow away —
although even in these cases, the Yellow bystander ships were never
actually "involved" in the encounter). There are a couple of cards
on which this term was not used, but really should have been; the
Cosmodex revises Wild
Gorgon and Wild
Guerrilla to say "bystanders" for clarity.
:Calculator:
Alien power, base set, designed by Future Pastimes, illustrated by
Ryan Barger. Tip: If you can play a negative attack
card against Anti-Matter or an
upset Loser, unless
your opponent also has one of the two remaining negative attacks
then equalizing will increase the value of his card and
your chances of winning.
Reduces Higher Attack
Card (Yellow)
You
have the power to Equalize. As a main
player, after encounter cards are selected but before
they are revealed, you may use
this power to declare an "equalize." If you do so and
both cards are revealed to be different attack
cards, the value of the higher card is reduced by the
value of the lower card. Thus if an attack 15 and an
attack 08 are played, the 15 has its value reduced to 7,
but the 08 keeps its value 8. The encounter is then
concluded normally.
(Main Player
Only)
(Optional)
(Planning)
Defenseless
on a jungle world, the order of Calculators grew
adroit at ensnaring their powerful but bungling
competitors. Now adept at turning strength back
against itself, they study the prospects of galactic
empire, trusting that other grosser beings will not
also grow calculating.
Wild: As a
main player, after encounter cards are selected but
before they are revealed, you may call "odd" or "even."
When the cards are revealed, if both are attacks and
their total is odd or even as you predicted, your
opponent's card value is reduced by the value of your
card. If you were wrong, your card is reduced by the
value of your opponent's.
(Main Player
Only)
(Planning)
Super: You
may use your power as an ally.
(Ally
Only)
(Planning)
:capturing:
Game effects such as Alien, Fungus, Wild Fungus, Pirate, and Tyrant are able to
capture other players' ships. Most of these effects have
some built-in way for the ships to get released, by either the
capturer or the owner. In addition, Super Symbiote can
release any or all of its ships that have been captured, and Ship Zap is able to
send a captured ship to the warp. Not really
capturing: There are also some effects, such as Arcade, Bride, Emperor, Pack Rat, Patriot, and Remote, that grab
ships but do not define it as a capture. Remote defines the
ships as removed from the game, but the other five will
prevent Masochist
from using his alternate-win feature unless you want to house-rule the Masochist ships
grabbed by these aliens to be considered "lost." (Note also that
Wild Guerrilla
incorrectly refers to a planet as being captured, but the
Cosmodex revises this to say "colonized.")
:card
distribution: The cards contained
in the first six product releases are as
follows:
Cosmic Encounter: Totals by deck:
20 destiny, 72 cosmic, 20 tech, 51 flare. During gameplay, a full
cosmic deck has 72 cards plus 10 flares for a total of 82 cards (if
there are more than five players, add 2 flares per additional
player).
• 20 Destiny: Blue
x3, Green x3, Purple x3, Red x3, Yellow x3, Wild x2, Special x3
• 39 Attacks: 00, 01, 04 x4, 05, 06 x7, 07, 08 x7, 09, 10 x4, 11, 12 x2, 13, 14 x2, 15, 20 x2, 23, 30, 40
• 15 Negotiates
• 01 Morph
• 06 Reinforcements: +2 x2, +3 x3, +5
• 11 Artifacts: Card Zap x2, Cosmic Zap x2, Emotion Control, Force
Field, Ionic Gas, Mobius Tubes x2, Plague, Quash
• 20
Techs: Coldsleep Ship,
Collapsium Hulls, Cosmic Field Generator, Delta Scanners, Energy
Cloak, Enigma Device, Genesis Bomb, Gluon Mines, Infinity Drive,
Lunar Cannon, Omega Missile, Plasma Thrusters, Precursor Seed, The
Prometheus, The Qax, Quark Battery, Tech Scrambler, Vacuum Turbines,
Warpspace Key, Xenon Lasers
• 51 Flares: Amoeba, Anti-Matter,
Barbarian, Calculator, Chosen, Citadel, Clone, Cudgel, Dictator,
Fido, Filch, Filch (Classic Edition), Fodder, Gambler, Grudge,
Hacker, Hate, Healer, Human, Kamikaze, Loser, Machine, Macron,
Masochist, Mind, Mirror, Miser, Mite, Mutant, Observer, Oracle,
Pacifist, Parasite, Philanthropist, Reincarnator, Remora, Reserve,
Shadow, Sorcerer, Spiff, Tick-Tock, Trader, Tripler, Vacuum, Virus,
Void, Vulch, Warpish, Warrior, Will, Zombie
Cosmic
Incursion: Totals by deck: 3 destiny, 32 reward, 20
flare. The reward cards reside in their own deck and thus do not
affect the cosmic deck's distribution.
• 03 Destiny: Orange x3
• 11 Attacks: –07, –04, –01, 10 x3, 16, 17, 18, 19, 23
•
03 Negotiate (Crooked Deals)
•
01 Morph
• 04 Kickers: x0, x2 x2, x3
• 04 Reinforcements: +4,+5 x2, +6
• 05 Artifacts: Card Zap, Cosmic Zap,
Finder, Hand Zap, Space Junk
• 04 Rifts: 3, 4 x2, 5
• 20 Flares: Bully, Chronos, Cryo,
Deuce, Disease, Ethic, Fungus, Fury, Genius, Ghoul, Guerrilla,
Leviathan, Locust, Magician, Mercenary, Merchant, Plant, Seeker,
Sniveler, Symbiote
Cosmic Conflict: Totals
by deck: 6 destiny, 28 hazard, 21 flare. Both versions of the
rulesheet claim there are 29 hazard cards, but this is
incorrect.
• 06 Destiny: Black x3, Invasion! x3
• 28 Hazards: Alliance, Black Hole,
The Cosmic Guardian, Cosmic Nebula, Cosmic Upheaval, Energy Fields
x2, The Entropy Beast,
Galactic Council, It's Full of Stars x3, Meteor Storm x2, Mirror Universe x2, Odd Way to Win a War
x2, Psychic Switcheroo,
Reverse Rewards x3,
Sargasso Web x2, Temporal
Anomaly x3, The
Witness
• 21 Flares:
Cavalry, Changeling, The Claw, Empath, Empath (Classic Edition),
Filth, Glutton, Graviton, Industrialist, Invader, Lunatic, Mimic,
Prophet, Relic, Saboteur, Sadist, Siren, Trickster, Visionary,
Warhawk, Xenophile
Cosmic Alliance: Totals
by deck: 6 schizoid, 3 destiny, 24 large group, 21 flare. The 24
Large Group Cosmic Cards in Cosmic Alliance are intended to be added
to the deck for games involving seven or more players; thus the full
cosmic deck with large group cards and flares will range between 108
and 112 cards.
• 06 Schizoid cards: Bluffer, Colonizer, Diplomat,
Invader, Relocator, Xenophobe
• 03 Destiny: White x3
• 12 Attacks: 00, 02, 04, 06 x2, 08 x2, 10, 12, 14, 20, 30
•
05 Negotiates
• 01 Morph
• 02 Reinforcements: +4, +8
• 04 Artifacts: Card Zap, Cosmic Zap,
Force Field, Quash
• 21 Flares: Animal, Bandit, Butler,
Chrysalis, Crystal, Cyborg, Extortionist, General, Gorgon, Horde,
Lightning, Poison, Pygmy, Reborn, Remote, Sapient, Schizoid,
Schizoid (Classic Edition), Skeptic, Sting,
Winner
Cosmic Storm: Totals by deck: 10
space station, 25 flare.
• 10 Space
stations: Alien Outpost, Big Space Laser, Colony Cloak,
Cosmic Energy Generator, Observation Platform, Shield Generator,
Shock Trooper Shuttle Pods, Tactical Array, Temporal Matrix,
Transdimensional Rift Relay
• 25 Flares: Arcade, Brute, Bulwark,
Converter, Coordinator, Dervish, Grumpus, Mouth, Neighbor, Outlaw,
Patriot, Phantasm, Porcupine, Roach, Scavenger, Sloth, Sneak, Squee,
Swindler, Sycophant, Tide, Tyrant, Vox, Worm,
Wormhole
Cosmic Dominion: Totals by deck: 32
reward, 30 flare. The reward cards reside in their own deck and thus
do not affect the cosmic deck's distribution.
• 05 Attacks: 02/20, 03/30, 12/21 x2, 21/12
• 04 Negotiates: Epic Oratory, Faulty
Translator, Right of Refusal, Self Defense
• 01 Morph
• 02 Retreats
• 04 Intimidates: -09, 19, 29,
39
• 05 Kickers: x–1 (Reverse Polarity),
x1 (Self Destruct), x2 (Duplicity), x2 (Jamming Signal), x4 (Give
War a Chance)
• 02 Reinforcements: +4, +X
• 05 Artifacts: Omni-Zap, Rebirth,
Ship Zap, Solar Wind, Victory Boon
• 04 Rifts: 1, 2 x2, 3
• 30 Flares: Ace, Alchemist, Angler,
Aristocrat, Bride, Daredevil, Diplomat, Doppelganger, Engineer,
Explorer, Greenhorn, Host, Joker, Judge, Laser, Lizard, Love,
Mesmer, Mirage, Muckraker, Pentaform, Pickpocket, Pirate,
Quartermaster, Reactor, Tourist, Usurper, Voyager, Whirligig,
Yin-Yang
CosmicCon Preview: One preview
alien was given out to CosmicCon attenders.
• 01 Flare: Demon
All Combined cosmic and reward cards from
all sets:
• 67 Attacks: –07, –04, –01, 00 x2, 01, 02, 02/20, 03/30, 04 x5, 05, 06 x9, 07, 08 x9, 09, 10 x8, 11, 12 x3, 12/21 x2, 13, 14 x3, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20
x3, 21/12, 23 x2, 30 x2, 40
• 27 Negotiates: regular x20, Crooked Deal x3, Epic Oratory, Faulty
Translator, Right of Refusal, Self Defense
• 04 Morphs
• 02 Retreats
• 04 Intimidates: -09, 19, 29,
39
• 14 Reinforcements: +2
x2, +3 x3, +4 x3, +5 x3, +6, +8, +X
• 09 Kickers: x0, x–1 (Reverse
Polarity), x1 (Self Destruct), x2 x2, x2 (Duplicity), x2
(Jamming Signal), x3, x4 (Give War a Chance)
• 08 Rifts: 1, 2 x2, 3 x2, 4 x2, 5
• 25 Artifacts: Card Zap x4, Cosmic Zap x4, Emotion Control, Finder,
Force Field x2, Hand Zap,
Ionic Gas, Mobius Tubes x2,
Omni-Zap, Plague, Quash x2,
Rebirth, Ship Zap, Solar Wind, Space Junk, Victory Boon
:card
modifications: Many different
game effects can modify encounter cards, reinforcements, and the
like, such as by changing a numeric value, converting the card into
a different type, or duplicating another card. It's usually clear
how these effects work (and the FAQ clarifies how Morph interacts with
other modifications), but determining how other, unrelated
effects should treat a modified card can be a challenge. For
example, if Reserve
converts an attack 06 into a reinforcement card, does this still
match The Claw's
attack 06 claw card? Can another player who holds Wild Reserve pick up
the converted attack 06 since it was played as a reinforcement? We
need a clear way to know which game effects should refer to the
card's original, printed identity and which ones should refer to its
current, modified state. Player consensus seems to
be that the following ruling, devised by Phil Fleischmann, does a
good job of answering the questions while supporting good gameplay:
Unless otherwise specified, game effects that strictly
affect encounter resolution — meaning those effects that
impact the types/values of encounter cards, kickers, and
reinforcements used in the encounter; main players' totals; the
method of determining the winner and loser; deals; compensation or
rewards; and disposition of the involved ships such as landing on
the planet, returning to colonies, going to the warp, etc. — all
refer to the card's current, modified type/value. Every other kind
of game effect refers to the card's original, printed type/value
(a.k.a. its "ink"). When a card is physically replaced by
another card, then all effects would of course use the new
card.
Examples of how all this plays
out:
• Arcade
pwning a ship is not a function of encounter resolution, so for
Arcade to use its second paragraph it must reveal an actual attack
card against an actual negotiate card. If something like Empath or Emotion Control were
to change either card, Arcade would still pwn a ship.
• Anti-Matter reveals a
negotiate vs. opponent's attack 20. Anti Matter plays Wild Pacifist to
change his negotiate into an attack 15. His power, because it
modifies the method of encounter resolution, sees his card as an
attack 15 and activates based on both players revealing attack
cards.
• Wild
Bully says "when your opponent reveals a negotiate card,
you may force that player to either immediately give you a colony...
or else lose two ships". Ordinarily, this would not be
playable if your opponent revealed an actual attack or morph card
and then it got changed to a negotiate, because it's not
specifically related to encounter resolution. However, Wild Bully
concludes with the following sentence: "Cards changed to negotiate
cards (such as by Emotion Control) still trigger this effect." Thus
the flare is playable whether the negotiate was natural or
synthetic, or even if a natural negotiate got changed to something
else (say by Wild
Human).
• The Cosmic Guardian
converts your attack 23 into a negotiate and you lose the encounter.
You still collect compensation, because compensation sees your card
in its modified form. (However, The Cosmic Guardian's modification
would be irrelevant when Wild Disease forces
everyone to show a card and try not to match anyone else's card
type, since Wild Disease fires during Regroup and cares only about
the ink.) Since The Cosmic Guardian has a broad effect that is not
limited to just encounter resolution, it affects only "natural" high
attack cards, not cards that are turned into a high attack by some
other effect.
• Wild
Deuce requires you to match the current (modified) value
of one of the revealed cards, since its effect is to modify the
total of one of the main players.
• Empath and his
opponent both reveal negotiates. The opponent plays Wild Human to convert
his card to an attack 42. Empath can now use his power to convert it
back to a negotiate.
• Super Genius must
match the ink, since its effect is outside of the encounter
resolution.
• Industrialist cannot
stack a Morph or a negotiate card on his sheet, even if they have
been converted to something else. However, if Super Empath
exchanged a negotiate card with an actual attack 06 from
hand, then Industrialist could of course stack the physical attack
06 card, since he would be checking the ink on the card he is now
considered to have revealed.
• For encounter resolution
purposes, Gambler's
unchallenged bluff card is whatever he claimed it was. For all other
effects, it is a card of unknown identity and thus most of those
other effects would not be playable if they needed to know the
actual identity. The
Claw, for example, cannot match Gambler if the bluff card
goes unchallenged, because the real identity is unknowable and the
claimed identity is not ink.
• Reserve plays the
attack -07 as a reinforcement. Anti Matter holds Wild Reserve but may
not play it to pick up the discarded attack -07, because
this flare does not affect encounter resolution and thus cannot
consider the -07 a reinforcement card.
• Spiff requires the
current (modified) type of both cards to be attack, since its effect
applies to the disposition of lost ships.
• Wild Vacuum says "For
each main player other than you who reveals an attack card, you may
retrieve one ship from the warp." Since this effect must inspect the
ink, you can still count the actual attack cards that were revealed,
even after (say) Emotion
Control has converted attack card(s) into
negotiates.
• Vox reveals an attack
08 and then makes it go up to 11. Odd Way to Win a War
is outcome-relevant and thus recognizes this as an odd attack
card.
• Warhawk will continue
to be a source of debate. Since it must consider the current
identities of the cards played, we still need to know whether it
re-applies itself whenever one of the cards changes to a
negotiate.
Note that this ruling is designed
to cover modifications to the types of cards whose primary purpose
is usually encounter resolution: basically encounter cards, kickers,
and reinforcements. As other effects come along that modify other,
more general-purpose types of cards (such as Mesmer reskinning
artifacts), this ruling might still be perfectly serviceable; or we
may need to revisit it.
:card
types: As of Cosmic Eons, the
card types in this edition of Cosmic Encounter are attack, morph,
negotiate, reinforcement, artifact, flare, destiny, tech, rift,
kicker, hazard, schizoid, space station, intimidate, retreat, and
essence. "Encounter
card" is not a card type, but rather a special category
or collection of four card types: attack, negotiate, retreat, and
morph. References: Game effects that target or
group cards by type include Alchemist, Bandit, Doppelganger, Hate, Love, Muckraker, Plague, Wild Alchemist, Wild Disease, and
Super
Emperor.
:Card
Zap: Artifact, base set, designed
by Fantasy Flight Games. Zap wars: There are two
Card Zaps in the base set, one in Cosmic Incursion's reward deck,
and a fourth in Cosmic Alliance's large group deck. It is perfectly
legal for one Card Zap to cancel another one, and for a third one to
then cancel the second, which would un-cancel the first. Naturally,
the fourth one could flip it all back the other way, effectively
re-canceling the first one. Retooled gameplay: Card
Zap combines the functions of three cards from earlier editions:
Eon's Flarezap and Un-Zap, and Mayfair's Edict Zap. FFG's combined
version of the classic zappers is thus more versatile and valuable,
as well as more strategically interesting because the player has
additional things to consider in choosing the best time to use the
card. Whereas the old Un-Zap targeted zap cards by name, Card Zap
targets flares and artifacts by card type; because of this
difference you cannot use Card Zap to cancel the Cosmic Field
Generator.
Negates Cards. Play at
any time to negate a flare or artifact card just as a
player attempts to use it. The flare or artifact must
then be discarded.
(As Any
Player)
(Start
Turn)(Regroup)(Destiny)(Launch)(Alliance)(Planning)(Reveal)(Resolution)
:cards:
Discarding: If for some reason it matters what
order cards are discarded in, the FAQ specifies that "the defense's
card goes on top." (The sequence for cards other than the two
encounter cards is left unspecified.) Drawing: If a
player needs to draw cards and there are not enough in the deck
after shuffling the discard pile, see cosmic quake.
Showing: You may make whatever claims you like
(true or false) about what you have in your hand, but you cannot
actually show your cards to anyone else unless a game effect causes
you to do so. Discussing: All discussion about
cards, hands, or any other aspect of the game must be public; no
whispered, signaled, or otherwise private communication is allowed
(based on an email response from FFG as
reported by SirHandsome) unless secrecy is indicated by a
particular game effect. For example, cards may be secretly shown to
another player via effects such as Bride, Chronos, Emperor, Wild Emperor, Greenhorn, Magician, Patriot, Peddler, Surgeon, and Wild
Visionary.
:Cavalry:
Alien power, Cosmic Conflict, designed by Mayfair Games, illustrated
by Felicia
Cano. Unusual encounter cards: Cavalry's
power may be used only on attack and negotiate cards; thus, unlike
Deuce, Cavalry
cannot choose a Morph or a Retreat as a second
card. (Neither of these aliens may use an intimidate card for
their power, since it is not an encounter card at the time it would
have to be played.) A variable attack card
may of course be used, and it will modify itself as usual upon being
revealed if a hazard
warning is in effect. Name collision:
Cavalry and Reserve
both have "the power to Reinforce." Retooled
gameplay: Mayfair's Cavalry said "anything that affects
the main player's card, such as Chronos, has the same effect on
yours." The new version rules that the opposite way, wisely avoiding
all kinds of existing and future interaction problems. (Chronos is
also nicely revised to take care of this situation; Cavalry would
return his card to his hand and is free to play it again if he
likes, which makes Cav a bit stronger in this specific case than it
was under Mayfair.) Also, FFG wisely changed Mayfair's "your
card has no effect" to "this [meaning Cavalry's
attack card] has no effect," thus fixing Mayfair's issue
where the main player revealing a Compromise technically made
Cavalry's Compromise useless. Mayfair's Wild Cavalry was completely
different: it essentially gave Chosen's power to all allies
in the encounter. Mayfair's Super Cavalry was considerably weaker,
allowing an ally to reinforce Cavalry without requiring it. FFG's
version essentially works both ways, since you can always say to
your chosen ally "don't you wish you could use my power to help us?"
and if he says yes, then play your flare. Edited to
clarify that the ally affected by Super Cavalry must still adhere to
the base power's timing.
Plays Encounter Card as
Ally (Green)
You
have the power to Reinforce. As an ally,
after encounter cards are selected but before they are
revealed, you may use this
power to play an attack or negotiate card facedown from
your hand off to one side. This second card is not
considered your side's encounter card and isn't affected
by game effects that target your side's encounter card,
such as those of the Oracle or Sorcerer. Reveal your
card when encounter cards are revealed. If you reveal
your card to be an attack, add it to your side's total.
This has no effect if your side's encounter card is a
negotiate. If you reveal a negotiate and your side loses
the encounter, you receive compensation after your
side's main player has received compensation, if
applicable. In any case, your card is discarded after
use.
(Ally
Only)
(Optional)
(Planning)
This
race of interstellar policemen has gained quite a
reputation for keeping peace on the fringes of
space. Many diverse aliens have called upon the
Cavalry to help suppress outpost revolutions. Now
the Cavalry hope to rule the Cosmos by becoming
indispensable.
Wild: As a
main player, you may play this flare when your opponent
needs a new hand. Cards are drawn one at a time until he
or she has the cards needed for the encounter (usually
one encounter card). Your opponent draws the balance of
the new hand at the end of the
encounter.
(Main Player
Only)
(Any
Phase)
Super: As
a main player, before encounter cards are selected, you
may choose one player allied with you. {That} After cards are selected,
that player must play an encounter card to
reinforce you, if able, as though he or she had your
alien power.
(Main Player
Only)
(Planning)
:challenge:
This term, which appears in Super Tick-Tock's game
text and in Siren's
short power description, is what an encounter was called in
previous editions.
:Changeling:
Alien power, Cosmic Conflict, designed by Future Pastimes,
illustrated by Ryan Barger. Swapping powers: If an
alien power specifies that it cannot be stolen, then it also cannot
be traded, loaned, etc.; this and other related leaks have been
patched on the relevant aliens (Horde, Pygmy, and Symbiote) by adding
that they cannot be separated from their player color. The reference
to the powers' facets going along with those powers should be
considered a general rule (see facets of powers for
more information). Retooled gameplay: Prior
versions of Changeling forced power swapping without allowing a card
draw instead. This is a welcome change to many players who might
have enjoyed Changeling as a concept but grew weary of the effect in
actual practice. The revised version is less "busy" and more
strategic. Eon's Wild Changeling was worded in such a way that you
might randomly get your flare back; FFG's rewording nicely prevents
this. Edited to correctly refer to Warrior's
tokens rather than the "points" he had in previous
editions.
Swaps Powers with
Opponent (Green)
You
have the power to Change Form. As a main
player, after the defense is determined,
use this power. Either draw a
card from the deck and add it to your hand or swap alien
powers with your opponent. This power may be used only
once per encounter. When swapping alien powers, you get
all facets of that power – e.g., the Miser's hoard, the
Warrior's tokens,
The Claw's claw, etc.
(Main Player
Only)
(Mandatory)
(Destiny)
The
childlike Changelings love to play, and gleefully
anticipate new experiences. Recently they have
developed the unsettling ability to shed their
psyches in exchange for those of others. Their
standard greeting of "I just don't seem to be myself
today" provokes panic in many a passing acquaintance
as the Changelings leapfrog about the
Cosmos.
Wild: At
any time, you may draw a card at random from the hand of
the player to your left. Afterwards, give this flare to
that player. Use this flare only once per
encounter.
(As Any
Player)
(Any
Phase)
Super:
When you use your power, you may swap powers with any
player in the game.
(Main Player
Only)
(Destiny)
:Chosen:
Alien power, base set, designed by Mayfair Games, revised by Jack
Reda and Fantasy Flight Games, illustrated by Ryan Barger.
FAQ ruling: When using Super Chosen, the player may
look at the cards drawn for divine intervention before deciding
whether to play the Super flare. Zap timing: A
player who wishes to zap Chosen must do so before cards are drawn
(see ________). Retooled gameplay: Mayfair's Chosen
was considerably weaker, drawing one (and only one) encounter card
to replace (not add to) the played encounter card. Mayfair's Wild
Chosen was completely different: it allowed the player to add or
subtract 10 after cards were revealed. Mayfair's Super Chosen
allowed only edicts (artifacts) and flares to be kept while drawing
for divine intervention.
Takes New Encounter
Card (Green)
You
have the power of Divine Intervention. As a
main player, after encounter cards are revealed, you
may use this power to pray for
divine intervention once per encounter. To do so, draw
three cards from the deck. If none are encounter cards,
discard them, and there is no further effect. If you
draw any encounter cards, you may choose one of the
drawn encounter cards to replace your revealed encounter
card (which is then discarded). If you have revealed an
attack card and choose another attack card for divine
intervention, the new card may either replace or add its
value to the value of your revealed attack card, your
choice. All other cards drawn for divine intervention
are then discarded, and the encounter is resolved with
the new card or card value.
(Main Player
Only)
(Optional)
(Reveal)
A
deeply spiritual and philosophical race, the Chosen
have become attuned to a higher force in the Cosmos
that they call upon in times of
need.
Wild: As a
main player, before encounter cards are selected, you
may draw one card from the deck.
(Main Player
Only)
(Planning)
Super: You
may keep any non-encounter cards drawn from the deck
while drawing for divine intervention.
(Main Player
Only)
(Reveal)
:Chronos:
Alien power, Cosmic Incursion, designed by Future Pastimes,
illustrated by Ryan Barger. Tip: Even when an
encounter goes your way, sometimes you may want to use your power
just to get back cards you played, such as Finder, Space Junk, Wild
Sorcerer, and Zaps. Of course you have to weigh the value of the
recovered card(s) against the likelihood that the replay of the
encounter will also be favorable. Retooled
gameplay: FFG wisely added the statement about taking
back into hand all other cards played during the initial run of the
encounter, which clarifies what happens with kickers. Eon's Wild
Chronos was completely different: it simply caused a new destiny to
be drawn (this was slightly retooled to become FFG's Wild Dictator). Eon's
Super Chronos was completely different: it allowed a player one
last-ditch encounter to try to win the game instead of another
player who had just won. Reversed edit: See Cosmodex reversals.
Edited to eliminate the implication that Super
Chronos forces Chronos to change his encounter card.
Links: [Corrected
flare] [Unofficial classic
Eon flare]
Can Replay Encounter
(Yellow)
You
have the power of Time Travel. As a main
player, after encounter cards are revealed, you
may use this power to call out
"time travel." You then return your revealed encounter
card to your hand while your opponent sets his or her
revealed encounter card aside. If your opponent has no
more encounter cards in hand and shows you so, he or she
instead returns the revealed encounter card to his or
her hand. All other cards played since the start of the
planning phase return to their owners' hands. The
encounter is then replayed from the start of the
planning phase. You both can use any cards in your
hands, and this time the outcome is final. When the
encounter is over, your opponent takes back the card
that was set aside.
(Main Player
Only)
(Optional)
(Reveal)
Unique
among life forms, the Chronos has forever been able
to pierce the veil of time and control its own past.
Now, the elite of the race grows tired of a world
where minor rivalries lead to constant paradoxes and
time-quakes and has set out to redesign the
Universe. That this involves altering reality comes
as past history to the Chronos.
Wild: At
the start of any regroup phase, you may look through the
discard pile, choose one card, and add it to your hand.
Then, shuffle the discard pile together with the deck to
form a new deck. Give this flare to the Chronos after
use (or discard it, if the Chronos isn't
playing).
(As Any
Player)
(Regroup)
Super:
When you use your power, you may force your opponent to
play the same encounter card a second time. {while you}
You may change
or replay your
encounter card.
(Main Player
Only)
(Reveal)
:Chrysalis:
Alien power, Cosmic Alliance, designed by Kevin Wilson, illustrated
by Ryan Barger. Noteworthy interaction: It's
interesting that after you metamorphose Chrysalis into another
alien, you then are able to use its flare (in Wild mode) to continue
tweaking which alien you are. Edited to avoid the
appearance of optionality, for wording consistency, to clarify that
the nine unused flares are not sent to the discard pile, to resolve
Wild Chrysalis' "transform" ambiguity, and to properly sequence its
redraw before the go/no-go decision rather than after.
Links: [Corrected
power] [Corrected
flare]
Becomes Another Alien
(Red)
Game
Setup: Place eight tokens on this sheet
(six if playing with four planets per
player).
You have the power to
Change. At the start of {any} every encounter,
use this power to discard one
token from this sheet. If there are no tokens left on
this sheet, look at the top 10 flares of the unused
flare deck. Choose one of these 10 flares corresponding
to an alien that does not have Game
Setup text and is allowed in the
current game. You become that alien for the
rest of the game. Add its flare card to your hand and
take its alien sheet. Then, {discard}
remove the other
nine flare cards from the
game and discard this sheet.
(As Any
Player)
(Mandatory)
(Regroup)
The
Chrysalis know that the Time of Change is coming.
Only then will they attain their true potential and
become what they were always meant to be. Only then
will the Cosmos fall before them.
Wild: As a
main player or ally, after alliances are formed, you may
draw the top card of the unused flare deck and transform
into that alien, zapping
your other power(s), until the end of this
encounter. If the alien
has Game Setup text or is not
allowed in the current game, draw again. You
may choose not to transform after you see what card
you've drawn{, and if
you draw an alien with Game
Setup text, discard it and draw
again}.
(Main Player or
Ally Only)
(Alliance)
Super:
When you use your power, you may discard two tokens from
your sheet instead of one.
(As Any
Player)
(Regroup)
:Citadel:
Alien power, base set, designed by Kevin Wilson, illustrated by Ryan
Barger. Planetary relocation: Whenever a planet is
moved, any citadel cards placed next to that planet go with it.
Outcome leak: Whether or not to discard activated
citadel cards is defined for wins and losses, but is left undefined
for deals, failed deals, and canceled encounters.
Tip: Normally you build positive citadels on your
own planets and negative ones on other players' planets, of course,
but medium to high attack cards placed in Anti-Matter's or Loser's system can
help you and your allies win encounters there (even if Loser doesn't
call an upset). House
rule: According to the FAQ, if the Citadel
alien sheet leaves the game, citadel cards remain where they are,
"stuck" for the rest of the game. The Cosmodex prefers to discard
them, especially since such a clarification is already needed for
planetary destruction. Edited to clarify that
placing a citadel card is limited to once per encounter rather than
once per turn, to plug the undefined-outcomes leak, and to give the
power a cleaner exit condition (even though this contradicts the
FAQ). Link: [Corrected
power]
Builds Citadels on
Planets (Red)
You
have the power of Fortification. During
each player's {turn} encounter, after
destiny is drawn, you may play an attack card from your
hand faceup next to any planet in any system as a
citadel.
If a planet with one or more citadels is
targeted, after encounter cards are selected but before
they are revealed, you may use
this power to activate all citadels on the planet. If
you do, add their combined value to the defense's total
for the encounter. If you activate your citadels on a
planet and the defense loses the encounter, discard the
citadels. Otherwise, they stay
in place.
Discard
citadels if their planet is destroyed or this sheet leaves the
game.
(As Any
Player)
(Optional)
(Planning)
Brilliant
architects who obsessively build vast fortresses as
they travel throughout the Cosmos, the Citadels are
often welcomed with open arms by the other races,
who are delighted to benefit from the Universe's
best defenses. Of course, what the Citadels don't
tell them is that these fortifications only work
when the Citadels want them to do
so.
Wild: As a
main player or ally, after encounter cards are revealed,
you may add 5 to the defense's total.
(Main Player or
Ally Only)
(Reveal)
Super:
Your citadels may either add to or subtract from the
defense's total when you activate them. Citadels are
still discarded if the defense loses, even when they are
used to subtract.
(As Any
Player)
(Planning)
:classic
flares:
As of Cosmic Eons, the alien powers that have both
standard and classic flares are Empath (Cosmic
Conflict), Filch
(Cosmic Encounter), and Schizoid (Cosmic
Alliance). Classic Wild Filch is easily one of the most
controversial effects in the whole game, adored by some and despised
by others.
:Claw,
The: Alien power, Cosmic
Conflict, designed by James Hata, illustrated by Ryan Barger.
Errata: Power reflects official FAQ2 errata (shown
in blue). Power loss: While The Claw has lost the
use of his power (because of insufficient home colonies, being
zapped, Plant, Wild Philanthropist,
whatever), his stolen planets do not count as foreign colonies.
Negotiate leak: The player's very first claw card
cannot be a negotiate, but there is no such restriction in the two
passages that allow claw cards to be replaced. Thus, as written, The
Claw player could simply swap in a negotiate card during the first
regroup phase of the game if he wanted to. Refresh
leak: The only way to get a new claw card onto the
sheet is when the current claw card has been played or swapped out.
This means if anything happens to remove the claw card from the
sheet outside the normal use of the power, then The Claw is useless
for the rest of the game. A single cosmic quake
(according to Kevin Wilson's interpretation)
would do this; however, the Cosmodex strongly recommends playing the
Cosmic Quake rule as printed and reshuffling only players'
hands. Should there arise other ways of removing the card
from the sheet, then the Cosmodex may revise this power to allow the
sheet to be filled whenever it is empty, has been done for Cyborg. House rule: As
written, The Claw applies only when cards are played, not revealed.
This of course is problematic with encounter cards, since The Claw
cannot know when a matching facedown encounter card has been played
(and reveal time is too late). The Cosmodex believes the power
should also work when cards are revealed, which may
possibly introduce a few unintended interactions.
Edited to fix the negotiate card leak and for
clarity. Link: [Corrected
power]
Steals Planets (Red)
Game
Setup: Choose one non-negotiate card from
your starting hand to be your "claw" and place it
facedown on this sheet; then draw a card from the
deck.
You have the power of The
Claw. Your claw is not part of your hand.
Other players may not look at or draw it. At the start
of any regroup phase, you may swap a non-negotiate card
from your hand with your claw.
Once per
encounter, when another player plays or reveals a copy of
the card you have as your claw, if it is not a negotiate
card, use this power and show your claw. After
the end of the encounter, choose a planet in that
player's home system, send all ships on it to the warp,
and move it to your home system to become a new home
planet for yourself (do not automatically
establish a colony on it). Then, return your claw card
to your hand and choose any non-negotiate card
from your hand to become your new claw.
Each
stolen planet in your home system counts as a foreign
colony toward your win, even if inhabited by other
players. (If you
gain a colony there, the
colony is a home colony and the planet itself still
counts as a foreign colony.)
(As Any
Player)
(Mandatory)
(Start
Turn)(Regroup)(Destiny)(Launch)(Alliance)(Planning)(Reveal)(Resolution)
Recently,
entire planets have gone missing, leaving behind
only orphaned, desolate moons – one of which was
marred by enormous claw marks.
Wild: As a
main player or ally, if both revealed encounter cards
are attack cards of the same value, you may make your
side automatically win the encounter.
(Main Player or
Ally Only)
(Reveal)
Super: You
may use your power any time two main players reveal
identical encounter cards. When this happens, choose
which main player to steal a planet from (your opponent,
if you are a main player). You may still only use your
power once per encounter.
(As Any
Player)
(Reveal)
:Cloak:
Alien power, Cosmic Eons, designed by Bill Eberle & Peter
Olotka, illustrated by Felicia
Cano. Placement: Cloak has some freedom in
how he positions the item(s) he moves, as long as each one is
clearly a valid association. For example, a card cannot be
ambiguously positioned between two different hands. The Cloak is
allowed to "hide" a moved card underneath the other cards of a
player's hand; the other players may have a hard time seeing its
destination, but they can still identify that there was a change at
the source of that move (another player's hand is missing a
card, or the top of a discard pile has changed).
Makes Secret Changes
(Red)
You
have the power to Act Unseen. Whenever both
sides in an encounter reveal attack cards and the total
of those cards is 20 or more, you may
use this power immediately. All
players must fan out their hands facedown on the table
and then the other players immediately close their eyes
and turn away from the table while you count out 15
seconds aloud. During this time you may move one ship,
one card, both, or neither. If moving a ship, it must be
from a planet to another planet or the warp, or from the
warp to a planet. If moving a card, it must be from one
player's hand (without peeking) to another or to the top
of the appropriate discard pile, or from the top of a
discard pile to a player's hand. As a diversion, you may
slightly shift other ships and cards without changing
their location.
After the first 15 seconds are
up, count out another 15 seconds while the other players
look for the changes you made. They may not touch their
cards or discuss, gesture, or communicate with each
other in any way. Before time runs out, any one of those
players, on a first-come, first-served basis, may claim
that you moved one ship, one card, both, or neither, and
must identify either the source or destination for each
move. If that player is completely correct, he or she
may either undo any or all changes or receive one
reward. If the player is incorrect or no claim is made
before time runs out, no changes are undone and you
receive one reward.
(As Any
Player)
(Optional)
(Reveal)
Tired
of simplistic shoplifting and bored with petty
voyeurism, the Cloaks now venture forth draped in
interstellar gauze, tweaking this and adjusting
that.
Wild: As a
main player or ally, during the planning phase, you may
force each player (including yourself) to simultaneously
pass one card from his or her hand to the player on his
or her left. Any player who has no cards in hand must
pass the card received along to the next player, but may
peek at it first.
(Main Player or
Ally Only)
(Planning)
Super: You
may use your power if both sides reveal negotiate
cards.
(As Any
Player)
(Reveal)
:Clone:
Alien power, base set, designed by Future Pastimes, illustrated by
Felicia
Cano. FAQ ruling: If Sorcerer switches
cards, the one Clone ends up with is the one he may return to his
hand. FAQ clarification: Clone prevents his card
from going to the discard pile, so it takes effect before powers
like Filch and Fido that wait for
cards to be discarded. Retooled gameplay: FFG omits
the clarification that Wild Clone overrides Vulch, but this does
not appear to be a gameplay change. Edited to
implement the FAQ ruling on Sorcerer and to clarify that Wild Clone
can be played after the artifact has had its effect (rather than
having to play the flare first and risk the artifact getting Card Zapped).
Link: [Kevin Wilson on
Clone]
Keeps Own Encounter
Card (Green)
You
have the power to Replicate. As a main
player, after the encounter is resolved (and after any
compensation is claimed), you may
use this power to add your
encounter card to your hand instead of discarding
it.
If your
encounter card gets replaced by another one, the
final card you use in the resolution phase is the
one you may add to your
hand.
(Main Player
Only)
(Optional)
(Resolution)
A
prolific species on a slowly cooling globe, the
Clones traditionally selected the best of their race
to represent them in territorial struggles. But as
the gene pool thinned, one clan developed techniques
to artificially duplicate their champion before
battle. Thus, always rejuvenated, they came to
dominate their world during the geologic crisis and
emerged from it anxious to carry their new knowledge
into a Cosmic competition.
Wild: You
do not have to discard an artifact you just played. Instead you may
retain it and play it again during a later
encounter.
(As Any
Player)
(Any
Phase)
Super: You
may choose to receive up to double the normal amount of
compensation, if your opponent has sufficient
cards.
(Main Player
Only)
(Resolution)
:coexist:
One player's ships can always coexist on the same planet with other
players' ships unless some game effect (typically Filth) specifies
otherwise. Some cards spell this rule out in varying degrees of
detail, but others are silent on the matter. These inconsistent
attempts at clarification can be easily ignored if you just remember
that coexistence is always allowed unless and until something
specifically tells you otherwise. (In fact, considering that Filth's
own text makes these situations clear, these unnecessary
"clarifications" really need to be disregarded since they give the
wrong impression about the timing of these interactions; see coexistence
bug.)
:coexistence
bug: At least 25 different aliens
and cards cause two or more players' ships to coexist on the same
planet. Most of these simply state (or even just imply) the
coexistence, without any extra verbiage, and they all work correctly
as expected. However, two of them (Bully and Disease) specifically
state that their effect cannot be used if some other game effect
"prevents" coexistence, and a third (Spiff) has similar but
less specific language apparently intended for the same purpose.
These "clarifications" are problematic and should be disregarded.
Inconsistent and unnecessary: The other 22
coexistence-causing game effects have no such clarification, and
work perfectly well (even with Filth). Clearly there
must be an unstated general rule that coexistence is always
allowed unless some game effect specifies otherwise. (And indeed,
this has been the case since 1977.) There is no apparent reason why
Bully, Disease, and Spiff should be treated any differently from the
other 22 game effects. Not applicable to Filth:
These three clarifications appear to have been written specifically
with Filth in mind.
A careful reading of that alien power, however, will reveal that
Filth does not actually prevent coexistence, so the
clarifications do not apply to Filth; in fact, they do not apply to
any existing (or potential) effect in the entire game. Although
Filth's power would seem to block coexistence conceptually,
it actually does not activate until after coexistence has
already been established. (This is a very wise and excellent design
on FFG's part for Filth, as it avoids all manner of rules conflicts
and allows interactions to occur naturally.) Thus these
"clarifications" are not needed for Filth, since its power would not
even come into scope until after the coexistence-causing
effect had already resolved. (And Filth makes the patchy text on
those aliens moot anyway, as we will see below.) Unintended
gameplay changes: If one were to choose to loosely
interpret Filth as a coexistence preventer, then the
"clarifications" would introduce a gameplay change that likely was
not intended. Ordinarily, any coexistence-causing effect can work
around Filth by using a Cosmic Zap. (And yes, there are actually
reasons to do so.) Unfortunately, the "clarifications" would block
using a Cosmic Zap altogether because they try to shut off the game
effect before it occurs, rather than just let it continue and let
Filth take its natural course. Even worse than being unnecessary,
then, these clarifications would actually forbid some classic, epic
game endings like Spiff zapping Filth for the win. Filth
takes care of itself: Because Filth is cleverly written
to work immediately after coexistence has been established, it works
correctly and fits into the natural gameplay flow in all of these
situations. (Bully, Disease, and Spiff should all be welcome to land
on a filthy planet just like anybody else, whereupon Filth's power
will immediately kick in and kick them out — naturally
causing the result that those three powers were trying to achieve
artificially, while still allowing Cosmic Zaps to do what
they were invented to do.) With the exception of an extreme case
like Super Symbiote,
there is no need for game effects to be "written around" Filth.
Summary: If Filth were to be interpreted
conceptually as a coexistence "preventer", then the three
"clarifications" would block Cosmic Zaps, make these three effects
inconsistent with the other 22, introduce presumably unintended
gameplay changes, and kill potentially climactic game endings. On
the other hand, if Filth is interpreted literally (as not a
coexistence preventer but an effect that is triggered after
coexistence occurs), then the clarifications are not even applicable
to the power they were apparently written to "handle." In either
case, they are entirely unnecessary because the general
rule that covers all coexistence effects, in combination
with Filth's well-written game text, is certainly adequate to take
care of Bully, Disease, and Spiff. (One of the other
coexistence-causing game effects, ironically, is Filth itself!)
Thus, the Cosmodex revises a number of entries to remove unnecessary
and problematic "coexistence clarifications," letting Filth do what
Filth does naturally — or, some might say, unnaturally
(yeccch).
:Coldsleep
Ship: Tech, base set, designed by
Fantasy Flight Games. Ship leak: The original text
is trying to let the player use his researching ships "from this
tech card," but it is impossible for there to be any ships on this
card when it is used. The rulebook makes it clear that when a tech
is completed, its researching ships must be returned to other
colonies before using the tech. In most cases this is not a
problem, though: since the card allows moving ships from any of the
player's colonies, he can in fact use his (former) research ships
anyway from the colonies he sent them to instead of "from
this tech card." Thus, this part of the tech's text (say that three times fast)
is completely unnecessary — except in the rare situation
where a player has no colonies at all for his ships to land on, or
when Engineer is
using his power to research this tech. Were it not for these rare
situations, we could simply delete the incorrect phrase, "or this
tech card." Instead, to prevent the researching ships from all going
to the warp in the first rare case, a new sentence is required to
make the card work as intended. This leaves us one remaining
question: "Since Coldsleep Ship requires 9 ships to research and
allows 4 of them to go onto the new colony, what happens to the
other 5 if the player has no other colonies?" To answer that
question, the revision presented here allows all nine ships to land
on the new colony when the player has no other option. (It is
difficult to tell whether this is consistent with the original
design intent, or whether this scenario was even considered, so that
addition is formatted in the opinion
color.) Edited to fix the leak.
Link: [Corrected
card]
Gain Colony. Once
completed, you may discard this tech at the start of any
encounter to gain a new colony on any planet in any
other player's system where you don't already have one.
You may place up to four ships on that colony from your
other colonies or this tech card. If you have no colonies to
return your researching ships to when you complete
this tech, you may immediately use this tech to gain
your new colony using all of those ships.
(9) (As Any
Player)
(Regroup)
:Collapsium
Hulls: Tech, base set, designed
by Fantasy Flight Games.
Save Ship. Once
completed, this tech stays in play. While it is in play,
when you lose an encounter as the defense by 5 or less,
one of your ships may remain on the planet instead of
going to the warp.
(4) (Defense
Only)
(Resolution)
:Colony
Cloak: Space Station, Cosmic
Storm, designed by Fantasy Flight Games, illustrated by Henning Ludvigsen.
Weak effect: This station is essentially an
expensive subset of the original version of Worm, but made even
weaker by giving away the decision-making power to your opponent. It
teeters on the brink of uselessness. Although not supported by the
requirement for a "legal
encounter," it is conceivable that perhaps FFG intended
this station to allow the offense to target a different player's
foreign colony.
As the defense, after the hyperspace
gate is aimed at one of your colonies or planets in this
system, you may send one of your ships from this space
station's planet to the warp. Then, the offense must (if
possible) target a different colony or planet in this
system where he or she can have a legal
encounter.
(Defense
Only)
(Launch)
:combo
cards: The 42nd Anniversary
Edition released in 2018 included 34 combo cards. These are intended
to shorten game setup time by presenting 34 different groups of
base-game alien powers, color-coded for 3, 4, and 5-player games.
One player draws a single combo card at random for the entire table,
and the aliens indicated thereon (based on number of players) are
acquired and dealt out randomly. Eight-player
versions: Galactic Championship Tournament participants
at the 2019 Escape Velocity convention received "tournament swag"
including a 42-card deck of more combo cards. These were produced
via FFG's Print-on-Demand process and feature different groups of
aliens drawn from the base game and all expansion sets through
Cosmic Eons. They are color-coded for 3- through 8-player games.
:compensation:
In the FFG edition of the game, you receive compensation only for
ships you actually lose to the warp, not ships that are returning to
Zombie colonies,
eradicated by Void,
captured by Fungus,
etc. Before you collect compensation, the other player is allowed to
play any cards from his hand that are legally playable at that time.
Compensation only becomes due if at least three (and possibly four)
conditions are satisfied: (1) you reveal a negotiate card; (2) your
opponent reveals an attack card; (3) you lose ships to the warp;
and, as at least implied by the rulebook, (4) you lose the
encounter. Playing Cards Before: Compensation does
not create any kind of hold/freeze/lien on your hand. You
are free to use any cards that may be legally played before
compensation begins to be collected. So, for instance, you could
play a reinforcement card (during the reveal phase) to get it out of
your hand before compensation is taken. However, once the
opportunity to play such cards has passed and compensation begins,
then it is too late. For example, you cannot wait to see if Hacker is going to
target you before deciding whether to "dump" your reinforcement
cards, because the time to affect encounter totals has already
passed.
:cone:
This term, which appears on Super Macron and Super Oracle, is what
the hyperspace gate was called in previous editions.
:Converter:
Alien power, Cosmic Storm, designed by Fantasy Flight Games,
illustrated by Felicia
Cano. Unanswered
question: What is meant by "ships saved
during an encounter"? This would apply at all times except
during a Start Turn phase. Surely the designer didn't mean "ships
saved during the other seven phases," but the intentions of this
phrase are beyond the deductive capabilities of the Cosmodex.
Can Substitute Cards for
Ships (Yellow)
You
have the power to Exchange. Whenever you
would lose ships to the warp, you may
use this power to discard up to an
equal number of cards from your hand. Each card
discarded saves one of your ships and prevents it from
being sent to the warp. Ships saved during an encounter
are returned to any of your other
colonies.
Whenever you would retrieve one or more
ships from the warp, you may
use this power to instead draw
cards from the deck. Draw one card for each ship you
choose not to retrieve from the warp.
(As Any
Player)
(Optional)
(Start
Turn)(Regroup)(Destiny)(Launch)(Alliance)(Planning)(Reveal)(Resolution)
The
versatility of the Converters makes them highly
prized as manufacturers and business partners. They
can take virtually any piece of technology and
change it into something completely different. Some
theorize that they eat the original materials,
creating some suspicion about how the new materials
appear.
Wild: As
an ally, if you would lose one or more ships to the warp
due to losing an encounter, you may force every player
on the winning side to discard one card at random from
his or her hand.
(Ally
Only)
(Resolution)
Super: In
any phase, you may discard any number of cards from your
hand. Then, you may retrieve ships from the warp or draw
cards from the deck, in any combination you choose,
equal to the number of discarded cards.
(As Any
Player)
(Any
Phase)
:Coordinator:
Alien power, Cosmic Storm, designed by Fantasy Flight Games,
illustrated by Felicia
Cano.
Manipulates Destiny
Deck (Yellow)
You
have the power to Schedule. As the offense,
instead of drawing a card from the destiny deck, you
may use this power to look at
the top three cards of the destiny deck and choose any
one of them to be the destiny card you have drawn. Place
the other two cards on the top and/or bottom of the
destiny deck in any order you choose.
When you
use this power, if there are fewer than three cards
remaining in the destiny deck, shuffle the destiny
discard pile together with the destiny deck to form a
new deck. You may only use this power once per
encounter.
Do Not Use with
Dictator
(Offense
Only)
(Optional)
(Destiny)
Warfare
in the Cosmos is rarely well scheduled. However,
amidst the chaos, the Coordinator is able to prepare
for different contingencies far more than most other
races. Despite the seeming random nature of
conflict, the Coordinator delights in using its
insight and impeccable timing to ensure that all
parties involved have sufficient time to annihilate
each other.
Wild: As
the offense, after destiny is drawn, you may discard
your destiny card and draw again.
(Offense
Only)
(Destiny)
Super:
After another player draws your color from the destiny
deck, you may choose to continue the encounter with you
as the offense and the player who drew your color as the
defense. The encounter then proceeds as normal.
Regardless of the outcome, the original offense then
ends his or her turn and play passes to the next
player.
(Defense
Only)
(Destiny)
:Cosmic
Alliance: See Cosmic
Encounter.
:Cosmic
Conflict: See Cosmic Encounter.
:cosmic
deck: This is the official name
of the main draw deck in this edition. Any reference to "the deck"
on a card or power means only the cosmic deck and not the reward deck, unless
otherwise specified. Drawing: If a player needs to
draw cards and there are not enough in the cosmic deck after
shuffling the discard pile, see cosmic
quake.
:Cosmic
Dominion: See Cosmic
Encounter.
:Cosmic
Encounter: Created in the 1970s
by the Future Pastimes crew, Cosmic Encounter was first published in
1977 by Eon Publications, and then republished over the years by
Mayfair Games, West End Games, Games Workshop, Avalon Hill, a
variety of international publishers (not always legally), and
ultimately Fantasy Flight Games. As of this writing, the FFG edition
consists of a base game released in 2008, a (slight) revision in
2011, a more involved revision in 2018, six optional and independent
expansion sets, and two alien powers given out at the CosmicCon and
Escape Velocity events.
Cosmic Encounter (2008, 2011):
The FFG base edition is based on the original Eon core game, but
with a larger selection of aliens, support for five players,
reinforcements, and a technology variant, among other additions. It
includes all the core necessities such as the hyperspace gate, warp,
etc.; planets, ships, colony markers, and destiny cards in red,
yellow, blue, green, and purple; wild and special destiny cards; the
72-card cosmic deck;
various tokens; tech tokens; the 20-card technology deck; and
alien power sheets and flares for 50 aliens: Amoeba, Anti-Matter,
Barbarian, Calculator, Chosen, Citadel, Clone, Cudgel, Dictator,
Fido, Filch (with two flare versions), Fodder, Gambler, Grudge,
Hacker, Hate, Healer, Human, Kamikaze, Loser, Machine, Macron,
Masochist, Mind, Mirror, Miser, Mite, Mutant, Observer, Oracle,
Pacifist, Parasite, Philanthropist, Reincarnator, Remora, Reserve,
Shadow, Sorcerer, Spiff, Tick-Tock, Trader, Tripler, Vacuum, Virus,
Void, Vulch, Warpish, Warrior, Will, and Zombie. Golden Geek
2009 Nominee: Cosmic Encounter was nominated in the
categories of Best Board Game Artwork/Presentation and
Best Gamers' Board Game of 2009 based on BoardGameGeek user
ratings. Second edition: The 2011 edition of the
base game has a revised box cover, but the same components as the
2008 edition. It has been reported that the five official errata in
the FAQ have been incorporated into this edition. 42nd
Anniversary edition: In 2018 the base game was revised
again, with another revised box cover featuring new artwork for the
Oracle alien power. Artwork was also updated for the warp, the
hyperspace gate, and the three tech tokens. The 80 ships in the game
are now rendered in translucent plastic, the Demon is included as a
51st alien, and there are 34 new "combo" cards listing suggested
combinations of base-game alien powers for 3, 4, and 5-player games.
The rules have been completely overhauled, and split into a rulebook
and a quick-start "comic book." Unfortunately the 2018 rulebook
contains many new errors, so owners of this edition are advised to
download and use the original 2008 rulebook linked here. [2008 Rulebook
PDF]
Player consensus has been that, generally
speaking, it's best to acquire the expansion sets in chronological
order, although many have recommended getting Cosmic Dominion and/or
Cosmic Eons sooner rather than later.
Cosmic Incursion (2010): The
first expansion set provides a 32-card reward deck that
offers new attack cards (some negative), some additional
reinforcements and artifacts, and another morph card, while
introducing kickers, rifts, and new special negotiate cards. It also
includes planets, ships, colony markers, and destiny cards in
orange; more tokens; and alien power sheets and flares for 20
aliens: Bully, Chronos, Cryo, Deuce, Disease, Ethic, Fungus, Fury,
Genius, Ghoul, Guerrilla, Leviathan, Locust, Magician, Mercenary,
Merchant, Plant, Seeker, Sniveler, and Symbiote. This expansion does
not change the composition of the cosmic deck (unless you use the
optional variant of shuffling the reward deck into it), but does
increase the overall number of attack, negotiate, morph,
reinforcement, and artifact cards available in the game. [Rulesheet
PDF]
Cosmic Conflict (2011): The
second expansion set offers a 28-card hazard deck with 17
different hazard cards in varying quantities. Also included are
planets, ships, a colony marker, and destiny cards in black; 24
saboteur tokens;
more cosmic tokens; three Invasion! destiny
cards; and alien power sheets and flares for 20 aliens: Cavalry,
Changeling, The Claw, Empath (with two flare versions), Filth,
Glutton, Graviton, Industrialist, Invader, Lunatic, Mimic, Prophet,
Relic, Saboteur, Sadist, Siren, Trickster, Visionary, Warhawk, and
Xenophile. This expansion does not change the composition of the
cosmic deck. [Rulesheet
PDF]
Cosmic Alliance (2012): Expansion
set #3 provides 24 "large-group" cosmic cards to increase the size
of the deck when playing with 6 or more players. It also includes
planets, ships, a colony marker, and destiny cards in white; six
Schizoid cards; 36 horde tokens; and
alien power sheets and flares for 20 aliens: Animal, Bandit, Butler,
Chrysalis, Crystal, Cyborg, Extortionist, General, Gorgon, Horde,
Lightning, Poison, Pygmy, Reborn, Remote, Sapient, Schizoid (with
two flare versions), Skeptic, Sting, and Winner. [Rulesheet
PDF]
Cosmic Storm (2013): The
fourth expansion set includes 10 space station markers
with matching space station cards; a sloth token; 7 swindler tokens;
and alien power sheets and flares for 25 aliens: Arcade, Brute,
Bulwark, Converter, Coordinator, Dervish, Grumpus, Mouth, Neighbor,
Outlaw, Patriot, Phantasm, Porcupine, Roach, Scavenger, Sloth,
Sneak, Squee, Swindler, Sycophant, Tide, Tyrant, Vox, Worm, and
Wormhole. [Rulesheet
PDF]
Cosmic Dominion (2014): In a
remarkable move, FFG and original CE designers Peter Olotka and Bill
Eberle invited the fans of the game to submit proposed content for
the fifth expansion set. The set comprises some of the
most-requested classic aliens not yet published by FFG, plus about
two dozen designs from a variety of fan authors. The new reward deck was also
designed by the fans and introduces two new card types: intimidate
and retreat. Cosmic Dominion includes the following modular gameplay
elements: a new 32-card reward deck containing
negotiate, kicker, and reinforcement cards bearing unique game
texts, variable attack cards, and the new card types intimidate and
retreat, as well as new artifacts, new rifts, and another morph; 8
ship markers; a hazard token; a cruise liner token; nine joker
tokens; two yin-yang tokens; and alien power sheets and flares for
30 aliens: Ace, Alchemist, Angler, Aristocrat, Bride, Daredevil,
Diplomat, Doppelganger, Engineer, Explorer, Greenhorn, Host, Joker,
Judge, Laser, Lizard, Love, Mesmer, Mirage, Muckraker, Pentaform,
Pickpocket, Pirate, Quartermaster, Reactor, Tourist, Usurper,
Voyager, Whirligig, and Yin-Yang. This expansion does not change the
composition of the cosmic deck (unless you use the optional variant
of shuffling the reward deck into it), but does increase the overall
number of attack, negotiate, morph, reinforcement, and artifact
cards available in the game. Golden Geek 2014
Nominee: Cosmic Dominion was nominated in the category
of Best Board Game Expansion of 2014 based on BoardGameGeek
user ratings. Alpha-neurotics rejoice: Thanks to
the addition of Joker/Judge,
Quartermaster, Usurper, and
Yin-Yang, as of this expansion set there are aliens
for every letter of the alphabet. [Rulesheet
PDF]
CosmicCon
(2014): Attenders of
this event
received a preview copy of the revised Demon, which was
eventually added to the 42nd Anniversary Edition in 2018.
Cosmic Eons (2016):
Expansion set #6 harks back to the game's early years and overflows
with brand-new alien designs from original Eon designers Bill Eberle
and Peter Olotka. Cosmic Eons features a wide array of
out-of-the-box alien powers, and introduces a new concept called
"essence" in which certain aliens leave little bits of themselves
scattered about the Cosmos, in the form of new half-size cards that
have lingering effects. Cosmic Eons includes the following modular
gameplay elements: 14 anxiety tokens, 5 couch tokens, 8 entanglement
tokens, 8 fire tokens, and 2 twin tokens; 55 essence cards (10 bad
dreams, 8 consequences, 8 disruptions, 6 helps, 5 privileges, 9
tickets, and 9 traumas); 6 alliance dials; and alien power sheets
and flares for 30 aliens: AI, Alien, Anarchist, Architect,
Assistant, Bleeding Heart, Cloak, Coward, Crusher, The Cult,
Emperor, Evil Twin, Fire Dancer, Hunger, Hypochondriac, Klutz,
Maven, Moocher, Multitude, Nanny, Nightmare, Oligarch, Pack Rat,
Particle, Peddler, Perfectionist, Pretender, Sheriff, Surgeon, and
Tortoise. Design note: During the first part of its
development, this expansion set was called Cosmic Grail. [Rulesheet
PDF]
Escape Velocity
(2019): Participants in the Galactic Championship
tournament held at the 2019 Escape Velocity received a Print on
Demand copy of the Booster alien power
and flare.
:Cosmic Energy
Generator: Space Station, Cosmic
Storm, designed by Fantasy Flight Games, illustrated by Henning Ludvigsen.
Deals: This space station has no effect in a deal
situation, since dealing or failing to deal is not the same as
winning or losing (see encounters).
After your side wins an encounter,
place two tokens on this card. After your side loses an
encounter, discard one token from this card. As long as
there are five or more tokens on this card, it counts as
a foreign colony toward victory.
(Main Player or
Ally Only)
(Resolution)
:Cosmic
Eons: See Cosmic
Encounter.
:Cosmic Field
Generator: Tech, base set,
designed by Fantasy Flight Games. Canceling: The
use of this tech is not vulnerable to Card Zap, because Card
Zap (unlike prior editions' Un-Zap) does not actually target Cosmic
Zaps specifically (it only targets artifacts and flares by card
type). To cancel the Cosmic Field Generator, you need Tech Scrambler or
Omni-Zap.
Stop Alien Power. Once
completed, you may discard this tech to cancel one
use of any alien's power,
including your own. That power may not be used again
during the current encounter. The use of this tech is
considered to be a "Cosmic Zap," but this is not an
artifact card.
(2) (As Any
Player)
(Start
Turn)(Regroup)(Destiny)(Launch)(Alliance)(Planning)(Reveal)(Resolution)
:Cosmic Guardian,
The: Hazard, Cosmic Conflict,
designed by Fantasy Flight Games. Timing and Scope:
This hazard affects all natural attack cards higher than 20
everywhere in play, continuously. Applying the "ink rule" (see card modifications),
we would conclude that it affects only actual high attack
cards, not other cards temporarily changed into a high attack by
some other effect. However, not all game effects can "see" this
hazard's modification. Although the affected card must be considered
to already be a negotiate for effects such as Loser, Mirror, and Visionary, the ink
rule requires that things like Plague, Finder, Hate, Angler, Sniveler, and The Claw still see it
as a high attack.
While The Cosmic Guardian is in play,
all attack cards higher than 20 are considered to be
negotiate cards.
Discard The Entropy Beast and
The Witness when The Cosmic Guardian enters
play.
(This Card Remains
in Play)
:Cosmic
Incursion: See Cosmic
Encounter.
:Cosmic
Nebula: Hazard, Cosmic Conflict,
designed by Fantasy Flight Games. The zapping effect cannot be
canceled with Card
Zap, since this hazard is not a flare or artifact card.
Thus, whenever Human
is involved in a Cosmic Nebula encounter, his side will win (unless
something like Loser
is also in effect).
During this encounter, any alien powers
that are used are immediately
zapped.
:cosmic
quake: If a player needs to draw
a card from the cosmic deck when the cosmic deck and the discard
pile are both out of cards, a cosmic quake occurs. All players
discard their hands and the resulting discard pile is shuffled to
form a new deck; then deal out a new normal-sized hand to each
player. (Any reward-back cards in players' hands are discarded, but
the reward deck is not reshuffled.) Cards affected:
The FAQ and the rulesheets for the first five expansion sets limit
the scope of a quake to the cards actually in players'
hands, and thus all cards that are not in a hand would not
be affected; this would exempt citadels, Miser's hoard, Cryo's cold storage,
Cyborg's bionics,
Industrialist's
stack, The Claw's
claw, cards set
aside by a flare or other game effect, flares on the
table waiting to resolve, and encounter cards on the table in the
planning or reveal phase. However, Kevin Wilson has stated on
BoardGameGeek that "no cards escape the quake." This statement may
have been an attempt to eliminate the "quake loop" problem (see
below), but it has some undesirable consequences. First there would
need to be some additional alien power errata so that things like
The Claw and Cyborg could replenish the cards required for using
their powers. More importantly, we would need a series of rules to
handle what happens when (for example) a quake scoops up one or more
revealed encounter cards when the encounter is partially or fully
resolved. Quake loops: If the cosmic quake does not
free up enough cards to fill all players' hands and also meet
whatever card-drawing need produced the quake in the first place,
the result will be an "infinite loop" of quakes. House rule: To
avoid infinite loops, the Cosmodex recommends allowing the drawing
player to simply take cosmic cards at random from the other
players' hand(s). This option is so simple, fun, tactical,
field-leveling, watertight, and quintessentially Cosmic that the
Cosmodex further recommends allowing players to choose between this
method and the standard rule whenever a quake is triggered.
Unanswered
question: If a player is collecting rewards
when the deck and discard pile are both empty but the reward deck is
not, does a quake still occur even if the player is willing to take
all of his remaining cards from the reward
deck?
Link: [Kevin Wilson on
cosmic quakes]
If a player needs to draw a card from
the cosmic deck and both the cosmic deck and discard
pile are empty, then a cosmic quake occurs! All players
discard their hands, and the discard pile is shuffled to
make a new deck, then 8 cards are dealt to each player.
The original player then
continues drawing.
:Cosmic
Storm: See Cosmic
Encounter.
:Cosmic
Upheaval: Hazard, Cosmic
Conflict, designed by Fantasy Flight Games.
Immediately shuffle all players' hands
together and then deal each player back as many cards as
he or she had beforehand. No cards may be played in
response to this card.
:Cosmic
Zap: Artifact, base set, designed
by Future Pastimes. There are two Cosmic Zaps in the base set, one
in Cosmic Incursion's reward deck, and a fourth in Cosmic Alliance's
large group deck. FAQ clarification: You may play
Cosmic Zap against a player who is attempting to use his Super
flare. The flare is prevented (not canceled); it returns to
the player's hand, does not count as the player playing a
flare, but does count as that particular Super flare being
played. In theory, the player could then play the Wild effect of
that flare later during the same encounter. See flares for more
discussion on this.
Stops Powers. Play at
any time to cancel one use of
any alien's power, including your own. That power may
not be used again during the current
encounter.
(As Any
Player)
(Start
Turn)(Regroup)(Destiny)(Launch)(Alliance)(Planning)(Reveal)(Resolution)
:Cosmodex
reversals: With the large number
of errors in this edition of the game, it can be a challenge to
determine the best revisions with respect to consistency,
playability, design intent, historical precedent, and other factors
(including, of course, fun). The Cosmodex strives to use
its best judgement, but is also overzealous and sometimes fails.
Acknowledging and correcting errors is thus an inevitable part of
keeping this "living document" alive and useful. Minor adjustments
are made all the time without fanfare, but the following reversals
seemed significant enough to document.
"Successful" encounters: The FAQ
says that Warrior
"collects experience as though he won an encounter, since
repopulating his home planet counts as a successful encounter."
Previously, the Cosmodex had taken this as evidence that drawing
your own color for destiny and reclaiming a lost home colony is not
only successful, but is also emphatically a win
for those game effects that target wins. However, this view has
changed and the Cosmodex now considers that part of the FAQ to be in
error: another result of the mistaken idea that there is no
difference between "success" and "winning" (see "Successful" and
"Explicitly declared successful" under encounters.)
Verification: Three game effects —
Chronos, Magician, and Vulch — require a
player to show cards in his hand to prove he is not cheating.
However, in all other situations where cheating would be possible,
the game operates on the honor system. For example, Bandit's opponents and
victims of the Plague are trusted to
actually lose all required cards of the appropriate type(s). We
trust Wild Cryo not
to set aside
encounter cards and draw a new hand prematurely. A player who
reveals a negotiate card when Loser has declared an
upset is assumed to be truly out of attack cards. The owner of the
Quark Battery is
trusted to have placed only an encounter card under it, not
something else that he wishes to make inaccessible for the rest of
the game, such as Mobius
Tubes or another player's Super flare. Schizoid is on his
honor to announce when another player wins by the alternate terms
(he could keep quiet and then use his Super flare to cover the
crime). The player questioned by Seeker is given the
benefit of the doubt that he actually played his highest card,
lowest card, etc. as he promised. Those affected by Super Cavalry, Wild Siren, Visionary, or Wild Visionary are
trusted to give, play, or show the appropriate card whenever
possible. And players must trust Sniveler to truly lack
the kind of card he whines about. Clearly the typical design
approach in such cases is to rely on the honor system, which usually
works just fine because the cases calling for verification are
fairly rare (even when facing Chronos or Magician, for example,
you're much more likely to have 2 or more encounter cards than to
have exactly 1), and even if a player does cheat, the fluid nature
of the cards in this game means he'll probably get caught anyway. At
one point, after careful deliberation, the Cosmodex had considered
the three verification requirements noted above to be unnecessary
exceptions to the general play ethos of Cosmic Encounter, so it
presented Chronos, Magician, and Vulch with their verification
clauses struck out and formatted in the opinion color. In later years,
however, this decision was reconsidered and found lacking. Even
though the game system usually chooses to trust rather than verify,
it's not a problem if a particular effect wants to require
verification for whatever reason. Thus the Cosmodex, as it ages and
mellows, attempts to be less of a consistency despot and more
accepting of such design inconsistencies if they do not impede
readability, fun, or the smooth flow of the game.
Super Loser: Virtually all effects
that operate "after encounter cards are selected but before they are
revealed" are limited to the Planning phase, but Super Loser's
timing indicator says Reveal. At one point the Cosmodex revised this
to Planning for consistency, but the change was later rescinded.
With the debut of Seeker suggesting that
there could be more effects coming whose timing indicators may not
fit the established patterns, it did not seem prudent to revise
effects like this without an actual gameplay need, or without at
least some explanation for the nonstandard icon.
Super Sapient: Sapient's base
power adds tokens to her sheet each time her side wins or loses an
encounter; since "each time" is essentially a synonym of "when,"
this suggested that the token accrual happened in the Reveal phase.
The Super flare, however, has a Resolution icon. As part of a
cleanup effort to fix multiple issues where Reveal-phase effects had
a Resolution icon and thus showed up too late to do any good (such
as Industrialist and
Super Trickster),
Super Sapient was revised at that time to have a Reveal icon. This
was later reconsidered when the Cosmodex's overzealous manservant
realized that Sapient's token accrual, unlike the other examples
above, could just as easily occur in the Resolution phase since it
can't really happen until the encounter outcome is locked in (and in
fact makes more sense if it happens afterward). A simpler
reconciliation approach was then taken: revising the base power to
work "after" an encounter is won or lost, to better hint at the
Resolution phase for consistency with the flare.
:Coward:
Alien power, Cosmic Eons, illustrated by Felicia
Cano. Encounter cards: When Coward flees,
both sides' encounter cards will be discarded normally but they are
not actually revealed (and there isn't even a reveal
phase). Thus game effects which depend upon cards being revealed,
such as Alien, Bully, Chronos, The Claw, Cudgel, Fire Dancer, Loser, Pacifist, and Poison, do not apply.
Wild Prophet
technically still works, though, because it counts how many
negotiate cards were played, not how many were revealed
(another good example of why these two terms are not synonymous).
Successful encounter: Coward's "success" doesn't
much matter when he is the defense. This phrase is basically a
shorthand for saying "if you were the offense, and this was your
first encounter (or you are the Machine), and you
still have an encounter card in your hand, and nothing forced you to
end your turn, then you may have a second encounter (or draw a tech
card if playing with the tech variant)." No loser:
When Coward flees there are no losing ships, losing
side, or losing main player; thus, effects like
Wild Arcade, Bully, Fungus, Hypochondriac, Pirate, Reactor, Wild Reincarnator,
Wild Swinder, Tyrant, and Void will not apply.
The opponent wins, but not by any particular margin, so things like
Arcade, Daredevil, and Winner also do not
trigger. However, Remote still works
because it targets an opposing ship (not necessarily a
losing one), and Prophet and Sycophant need only
predict a winner, not a loser. Similarly, a Judge's fiat in favor
of the winner still stands, but a fiat favoring the loser has no
effect if the Coward flees.
Withdraws From
Encounters (Yellow)
You
have the power to Flee. As a main player,
after encounter cards are selected but before they are
revealed, you may use this
power to flee. Proceed to the resolution phase. Your
opponent wins, your ships and those of your allies
return to other colonies, and your flight counts as a
success for you rather than a loss. After encounter
cards are discarded, you receive one reward for each
ship your opponent had in the
encounter.
(Main Player
Only)
(Optional)
(Planning)
Chanting
"To flee or not to flee," the Cowards
retreat their way around the Universe, keeping a
jaundiced eye on possible ultimate domination via
the back door.
Wild:
After encounter cards are selected but before they are
revealed, you may flee from your encounter and count it
as a success. Give your encounter card to the defense.
Return your ships to your colonies. The defense discards
normally and his or her ships remain on the planet. All
ally ships return to colonies.
(Offense
Only)
(Planning)
Super:
When you flee, before encounter cards (and kickers, if
any) are turned faceup to be discarded, you may instead
privately examine them and add any or all to your hand,
discarding the rest. If you keep any of those cards, do
not receive rewards for fleeing.
(Main Player
Only)
(Resolution)
:cruise liner
token: See Tourist.
:Crusher:
Alien power, Cosmic Eons, designed by Bill Eberle & Peter
Olotka, illustrated by Felicia
Cano. Power vs. sheet: An unfortunate edit
in the final stages of development replaced "sheet" with "power" in
the last sentences of Crusher and Fire Dancer. These two
terms are not actually interchangeable; you can lose your power
without losing your sheet via effects such as Plant and Wild Philanthropist,
and perhaps even by just getting zapped. These situations should not
release all crushed ships or extinguish all fire tokens.
Edited to restore the correct wording
convention.
Reduces Ships to One
(Yellow)
Game
Setup: Choose one unused player color and
place the 20 ships of that color on this sheet (16 if
you are playing with four planets per player) as crusher
ships. Do not use this power unless you have an unused
player color.
You have the power to
Crush. As a main player, before encounter
cards are selected, you may
use this power to crush the ships
of the other main player and his or her allies. For each
affected player, stack his or her involved ships and
place one of your crusher ships from this sheet on top.
Each crushed stack is controlled by its owner, and moves
and counts as a single ship in every way. A crushed
stack may not have ships added to or removed from it and
may not be re-crushed into another
stack.
Whenever one or more of your ships go to
the warp, you may use this
power to choose one other player and crush all of that
player's ships in the warp that are not already
crushed.
During the alliance phase, you
may use this power to release
one or more crushed stacks in exchange for anything
their owners could give you as part of a deal, and/or in
exchange for their owners agreeing to receive cards from
your hand. The released ships remain in place and the
crusher ships return to this sheet.
If this {power} sheet is lost or
turned facedown, all crushed ships are released wherever
they are.
(As Any
Player)
(Optional)
(Start
Turn)(Regroup)(Destiny)(Launch)(Alliance)(Planning)(Reveal)(Resolution)
The
Crushers are a simple, rather brutal race with
straightforward tactics.
Wild: As a
main player, after encounter cards are selected but
before they are revealed, you may make your opponent's
ships in the encounter count as just one ship for
encounter totals, compensation, and
rewards.
(Main Player
Only)
(Planning)
Super:
When losing ships to the warp, each ship you lose may
crush a different player's uncrushed ships in the
warp.
(As Any
Player)
(Any
Phase)
:Cryo:
Alien power, Cosmic Incursion, designed by Jack Reda, illustrated by
Ryan Barger. Set aside: The other cards set aside
with Wild Cryo may be kept face-down, since you set them aside
before revealing your hand to discard it. (See also set aside.)
Unanswered
questions: Can both effects of Super Cryo be
used during the same encounter? If so, does it matter which one is
used first? Noteworthy interactions: When used to
build a "power hand," Cryo's power is susceptible to all the same
effects that can make Genius a non-power.
Tip: Generally you will choose between using your
cold storage to build up a "power hand" for later use, or as a
dumping ground for cards you either don't want to be forced to play
or don't want other players to acquire. If you are able to store a
card like Hand Zap
or any of the Wild flares for Deuce, Filch, Mirror, Oracle, Pacifist, and Trader, then you may
want to consider using the cold storage for both purposes at the
same time, since you'd be able to play the good cards and purge (or
improve) the bad ones. Tip: Once you pick up your
cold storage, other players will naturally want to raid your hand.
If you are able to store any protection or recovery cards like Card Zap, Cosmic Zap, Emotion Control, Finder, Ionic Gas, Wild Hacker, or Wild Miser, do so.
Retooled gameplay: Mr. Reda's Cryo was more
flexible, allowing cards to be stored any time during the encounter.
His Wild Cryo was completely different: it allowed the player to
exempt two cards from compensation (essentially a subset of FFG's
Wild Miser). Reda's
Super Cryo did not include the ability to take the stored cards as a
new hand even when they numbered fewer than eight cards. This
addition by FFG makes the card more useful, but also poses a dilemma
for its prerequisite and timing bars. As printed, the second effect
technically can be used only during the Alliance phase and only if
Cryo is a main player or ally. This is probably not what was
intended. On the other hand, relaxing the bars to (As Any
Player) and
(Any
Phase) in order to
match the second effect creates a new problem for the first effect
by visually implying that a card can be stored at any time. This,
then, requires the phrase "when using your power" to reinforce that
the restrictions of the base power are still in effect.
Edited for clarity, to fix Super Cryo's
prerequisite and timing indicators to accommodate its second effect,
and to clarify its first effect in light of the revised indicators.
Link: [Corrected
flare]
Saves Cards for Later
(Yellow)
You
have the power to Preserve. As a main
player or ally, after allies are invited, you
may use this power to take one
card from your hand and put it in cold storage by
placing it facedown on this sheet. Afterwards, draw one
card from the deck. Cards on this sheet are frozen and
cannot be looked at or drawn by any other player, nor
are they part of your hand.
If you have at least
eight cards on this sheet, you may discard your
hand at any time to take the cards from this sheet as
your new hand.
(Main Player or
Ally Only)
(Optional)
(Alliance)
Thanks
to their unique metabolism, the Cryo are able to
enter hibernation for millennia, awakening only when
their people have need of them. However, the time is
fast approaching when the Cryo may finally awaken
all of the great heroes of their past to lead them
to Cosmic conquest.
Wild: When
you draw a new hand, you may first set aside any or all
of your non-encounter cards (including this flare).
Then, draw a new hand of eight cards before adding the
cards you set aside back into your new
hand.
(As Any
Player)
(Any
Phase)
Super:
When using your power to
store a card, you may swap it for a card in
storage instead of drawing a card from the
deck.
In addition, you may discard your hand to
take your cards in storage as a new hand regardless of
how many cards you have stored.
({Main
Player or Ally
Only})
(As Any
Player)
({Alliance})
(Any
Phase)
:Crystal:
Alien power, Cosmic Alliance, designed by Kevin Wilson, illustrated
by Ryan Barger. Retooled gameplay: Eon's Crystal
was completely different: it let the player control how many ships
each other committed ally had to send to the encounter. However, the
original history and Wild flare effect have been retained. (Some
players have commented that Remote could be a
merged replacement for both Crystal
and Magnet,
with a little bit of Fungus mixed in.) Edited for
wording consistency. Links: [Unofficial classic
Eon flare] [Crystal]
[Magnet]
May Multiply Attack
Cards (Yellow)
You
have the power to Refract. As a main player
or ally, use this power after
both main players reveal attack cards. Any one player on
your side can discard one attack card from his or her
hand that matches the value of your side's revealed
attack card. If a player does so, multiply your side's
revealed card by the discarded card's value. For
instance, if your side reveals an attack 08, any one
player on your side may discard an attack 08 to change
the revealed card into an attack 64.
(Main Player or
Ally Only)
(Mandatory)
(Reveal)
Arranged
in orderly three-dimensional lattices, Crystals tend
to dominate the arrangement of their local
environment. They know that, with a few suggestive
seeding hints, they can bring the entire Universe
into the most efficient energy packing: Crystalline
order.
Wild: At
the start of any encounter, you may rearrange your ships
among your colonies as you wish.
(As Any
Player)
(Regroup)
Super:
When another player discards a card to activate your
power, you may add that card to your
hand.
(Main Player or
Ally Only)
(Reveal)
:Cudgel:
Alien power, base set, designed by Ken Hubbard, illustrated by Felicia
Cano. Tip: The normal ruse of placing only
one ship into the hyperspace gate to make it look like you don't
expect to win can be even more convincing for Cudgel, since you are
also giving up the chance to smash additional ships. This can lead
your opponent to conclude that you have a negotiate or a low attack,
causing him to do the same. Retooled gameplay:
Hubbard's Super Cudgel affected all opposing allies rather than
allowing the player to specify individual allies.
Opponent Loses More
Ships (Green)
You
have the power to Smash. As a main player,
when you win an encounter in which you revealed an
attack card, use this power to
force your opponent to lose extra ships of his or her
choice equal to the number of ships you had in the
encounter, in addition to any ships he or she would
normally lose.
(Main Player
Only)
(Mandatory)
(Resolution)
The
customary greeting among Cudgels is a hearty
handshake and a solid blow to the head. This
long-standing tradition – often fatal – is
frequently misunderstood by weaker races, much to
the amusement of the Cudgels. Now, having flattened
all of their closest friends, the gregarious Cudgels
look skyward, leaving the debris of their broken
planet behind. With fists raised in friendship, they
seek out new beings to meet, greet, and smash, and
will not stop until the Cosmos itself is
shattered.
Wild: As
the offense, when you gain a colony, you may send all
ships on that planet belonging to other players to the
warp. Ships that were allied with you on this encounter
are not affected.
(Offense
Only)
(Resolution)
Super:
When you use your power on a player, you may affect any
of that player's allies also. Each player you smash
loses the number of ships you had in the
encounter.
(Main Player
Only)
(Resolution)
:Cult,
The: Alien power, Cosmic Eons,
designed by Bill Eberle & Peter Olotka, illustrated by Felicia
Cano. Infinite loop: The Cult should
probably not invite Warhawk as a member, because every time he has
an encounter with another cult member there will be an infinite loop
of the main players' encounter cards oscillating between negotiate
and attack 00. (A similar issue occurs with Bleeding Heart.) While
one might think the Timing
Conflicts rule would prevent these loops, it actually
does not since Warhawk and the other power are never trying to have
their effect at exactly the same time.
Recruits Members (Red)
You
have the power of Allegiance. As a main
player, before allies are invited, you may
use this power to offer your
opponent membership in The Cult if he or she is not
already a member. If your opponent accepts, he or she
places one of his or her ships on this sheet from any
colony. Members of The Cult are bound by the following
rules:
• When both main players are in The Cult,
no alliances are allowed and all revealed encounter
cards that are not negotiates become negotiates.
•
When only one main player belongs to The Cult, all ships
of all members of The Cult that are on foreign colonies
in the targeted system but not involved in the encounter
will count as 1 each toward The Cult member's total.
These ships will go to the warp if The Cult member
loses.
• A Cult member may not willingly ally against
another Cult member.
• A game win for a member of
The Cult is a win for all members of The
Cult.
When any other member of The Cult is a main
player, before allies are invited, that player may lose
four ships to the warp and discard four cards from his
or her hand to renounce The Cult. His or her ship on
this sheet returns to any colony. That player is no
longer a member.
(Main Player
Only)
(Optional)
(Alliance)
Once
a religious retreat, The Cult is now expanding their
fervor to other Cosmic systems.
Wild: As a
main player, after encounter cards are selected but
before they are revealed, you may play this flare. All
of your ships on foreign colonies in the opponent's
system count toward your total but will not be lost to
the warp if you lose the encounter.
(Main Player
Only)
(Planning)
Super: You
may cancel another player's attempt to renounce The
Cult.
At the start of any turn, you may denounce
and remove any other player from The Cult. His or her
ship on your sheet returns to one of his or her
colonies.
(As Any
Player)
(Any
Phase)
:Cyborg:
Alien power, Cosmic Alliance, designed by Fantasy Flight Games,
illustrated by Ryan Barger. Playing from discard
pile: When Wild Cyborg plays a card from the discard
pile, that card is actually picked up and played normally, and
subject to the same effects as any other played card, including
being zapped, stolen, converted, etc. Wild Cyborg and other
flares: Under the standard rules, Wild Cyborg cannot
target a flare because this would require playing more than one
flare during the same encounter. Using the Freewheeling Flares
variant, however, this would be allowed. In this case, the recovered
flare follows the rules normally and thus returns to the player's
hand unless it is zapped or its text says to do something else with
it. Presentation overhaul: The base power takes a
baffling and broken approach to defining which cards return to the
sheet and when replacement cards are drawn. The text is wasteful,
redundant yet inconsistent, illogical, ambiguous, and leaky. The
issues include the fuzziness of what constitutes "normally
being discarded," effects like Chronos sending an
encounter card back to the Cyborg's hand, Sargasso Web removing
from the game a card that "would normally be discarded," and a
single cosmic quake
(according to Kevin Wilson's interpretation)
destroying Cyborg's power for the rest of the game. Worse, all the
flares that should be given to another player after use (including
the atypical ones like Wild
Changeling and Wild Reincarnator)
remain on the sheet to be used repeatedly for the rest of the game.
(How did such a mess make it
through playtesting?) These problems seem to stem from
some notion (incorrect, of course) that if a card is not being
discarded, it must by necessity be returning to your hand. The
Cosmodex normally prefers to integrate smaller, focused changes into
a text where necessary, but in this case a complete recast is
required. The two major defects are thus re-expressed as
straightforwardly as possible: (1) if a bionics card would normally
return to your hand, it returns to the sheet instead, and (2) at the
end of the encounter you should (if necessary) draw until you are
back to three cards on the sheet. Once these changes are made, the
Game Setup paragraph then becomes unnecessary.
Edited for wording consistency, to fix major leaks,
to eliminate the ambiguity about cards that "would normally
be discarded," to eliminate redundancy, for readability, to fit the
text onto the standard art template, and to fix various issues with
Super Cyborg not actually being "played," leaving your hand
temporarily but remaining under your control, turning up as one of
your bionics cards, etc. Links: [Corrected
power] [Corrected
flare]
Has 3 Extra Faceup
Cards (Yellow)
{Game
Setup: After starting hands are
dealt, Cyborg is dealt three extra cards faceup
on this sheet. These cards are not part of the
Cyborg's hand and cannot be
stolen.}
You have the
power of Bionics. At the start of every
encounter, if you have fewer than three cards on
this sheet, draw cards from the deck to place faceup
on this sheet until you have three. These cards are
not part of your hand.
At any time,
you may play a non-encounter card that is faceup on this
sheet as though it were in your hand. {If the card would
normally be discarded after being played,
discard the played card, draw a new card, and
place it faceup on this sheet. If the card would
not normally be discarded after playing, return
it faceup to this sheet after resolving
it.}
As a main player or ally,
after your side reveals an encounter card, you
may use this power to discard
your side's revealed card and replace it with an
encounter card that is faceup on this sheet. {After the encounter
ends, draw a new card and place it faceup on
this sheet.}
Cards from this sheet that
should return to your hand return here
instead.
(Main Player or
Ally Only)
(Optional)
(Reveal)
A
perfect marriage of biology and technology, the
Cyborgs have been an odd mix of contrasts ever since
they first showed up in the Cosmos. Loyal and caring
toward one another, yet coldly logical when need be,
the Cyborgs have done the math and know that they
will eventually rule the Cosmos for the greater good
of all races.
Wild: You
may play the top card of the discard pile as though it
were in your hand. You may use this flare only once per
encounter.
(As Any
Player)
(Any
Phase)
Super:
{At any time, reveal
this flare to draw and add a fourth faceup card
to your sheet. If this flare leaves your hand,
discard one of your faceup cards.}
When drawing cards to
place on your sheet, you may draw until you have
four there instead of three.
When this flare
is on your sheet, it does not count as one of your
three or four cards.
(As Any
Player)
({Any
Phase})
(Regroup)
:Daredevil:
Alien power, Cosmic Dominion, designed by Zach Whelchel, illustrated
by Felicia
Cano. Edited to fix the Super flare error
(when the design team revised Daredevil's base power from 3 to 4, we
caught it on the Wild flare but I missed it on the Super).
Cuts Close to Gain
Rewards (Yellow)
You
have the power of Risk. As a main player or
ally, after encounter cards are revealed, you
may use this power to discard
one attack card with a value from 01 to 08 from your
hand. Subtract that value from your side's
total.
As a main player or ally, when your side
wins an encounter by 4 or less, each player on your side
receives rewards equal to the number of ships he or she
has in the encounter (in addition to any other benefits
received for winning).
(Main Player or
Ally Only)
(Optional)
(Reveal)
Preferring
an uncertain but exciting existence to
predictability, Daredevils thrive on adrenaline,
even that of others. Danger elevates the Daredevils'
abilities, and their allies either rise quickly or
fall hard. For Daredevils, the closer the shave, the
bigger the rush.
Wild: As a
main player or ally, after encounter cards are selected
but before they are revealed, you may use this flare. If
your side wins by 4 or less, you may use one of your
ships in the encounter to establish a colony on any
planet in the opposing main player's system. Otherwise,
lose three ships of your choice to the
warp.
(Main Player or
Ally Only)
(Planning)
Super: You
may cause the players on your side to receive rewards if
you win by 6 or less rather than {3} 4 or
less.
(Main Player
Only)
(Reveal)
:deals:
When you make a deal because you and your opponent both revealed
negotiate cards, or due to a game effect such as Galactic Council or
Wild Judge, you may
agree to give one or more cards from your hand, to allow the other
player to establish one colony on any planet where you have a
colony, to give one or more of your space stations, and/or
to give other physical item(s) as allowed by specific game effects.
For the deal to be valid, at least one tangible item (usually a
card, colony, or space station) must be gained upon its conclusion.
However, it is not required that both players receive
something; the deal can be one-sided, as long as something tangible
and appropriate is gained by one of the players. Granting
cards: The rules state that "the terms of the deal are
carried out as agreed upon." Thus you must hand over the exact cards
that you promised to give, according to the level of specificity
(see below) agreed to in the deal. Obviously, then, you cannot make
a deal in which you agree to trade something you don't actually
have. (In general you are free to lie about what's in your hand, so
you may of course use what you say during negotations to try to
trick other players into thinking you do or do not hold certain
cards, and may even pretend to work toward a deal you can't carry
out. But you may not finalize any kind of illegal deal.)
Granting colonies: You may allow one colony to be
established wherever you have one and the other player does not, on
a home or foreign planet. You do not have to evacuate your ships
from it; they coexist with those of
the other player. (Unless one of you is the Filth, of course.) No
player may gain more than one colony from a deal. See also the
Specificity section below. Granting space
stations: No limit is given for the number of space
stations which may be traded. The receiving player attaches it/them
to any of his home planets, subject to the limit of one station per
planet. Trading a space station by itself is a valid deal.
Releasing ships: Tyrant and Zombie allow ships to
be released as part of a deal. This can constitute the entire deal
by itself, or can be part of a larger deal involving cards,
colonies, and/or stations. Other tangible assets:
Pack Rat can release
its collected objects as part of a deal, and Perfectionist can
trade cards from its reject pile. As of this writing, no other
physical resources are tradable in a deal. The FAQ affirms that tech
cards are off limits, since that question was asked directly, but
this should be understood as one example of a general rule:
physical components that are not specifically mentioned (tech cards,
ships, alien powers, tokens, planets, etc.) may not be traded in a
deal unless a game effect allows it. (Although allowing techs to
trade could easily be a viable house rule.)
Future promises: Players may discuss promises of
future action during the deal if they so desire, but these are not
enforceable and do not constitute a valid deal on their own. (This
is what the FAQ meant by "anything else you choose to negotiate with
is up to you.") Somebody might offer to invite you as an ally on a
future encounter; Will could promise to
avoid choosing you as the defense for a time; Dictator might allow
you to direct his next use of his power;
Shadow could promise
not to destroy one of your single-ship colonies on your next
execution; and so on. These things are not technically part of the
deal; they are really just an aspect of the ongoing table talk and
ad hoc allegiances by which players may try to influence each
others' actions throughout the game. Specificity:
Although not spelled out clearly in the rules, it makes sense that
the level of specificity in the deal is up to the players to
negotiate. For example, a player might offer "one card" or "one
attack card" or "a reasonably high attack card" or "an attack card
greater than 12" or "the attack 19" or "one of my reward-back cards"
or "a card that I'm pretty sure will help you defeat Virus." Similarly,
when a colony is to be granted, players might negotiate its exact
location in advance, or leave it up to one or the other of them to
choose after the deal is made. (If nothing is said about it, the
player establishing the colony should get to choose the location.)
Players might also negotiate how many ships, or
even which specific ones, will be used to establish the colony,
which could matter when a player's ships do not all have identical
characteristics (Fungus, Horde, Lizard, The Prometheus, Roach, ship markers, etc.).
A deal is not a "win" and a failed deal is not a
"loss." Deals and wins are both successful encounters, and both let
the offense have a second encounter (or draw a tech card), but the
two terms are not interchangeable. Game effects triggered by a
win/loss are not also triggered by a deal/failure unless the effect
specifically says so. More than two players: Deals
involving three or more players are allowed by Diplomat and Galactic Council,
raising the question of whether every player in the deal can
theoretically gain one colony from every other player (that is,
n-1 colonies apiece). The rules are not entirely clear on
this, but the design intent seems to be that dealing players cannot
gain more than one colony each, unless something like Negotiate (Epic
Oratory) is in effect.
:deck:
As of Cosmic Eons, there can be as many as eight decks in a game:
the cosmic deck, destiny deck, reward deck, hazard deck, tech deck,
unused flare deck, space station deck, and schizoid deck. (From a
product perspective there are two different reward decks; but a
particular game generally uses just one reward deck, which may or
may not combine the cards from those two products.) Essence
sets: While it may seem that there is also a series of
small "essence decks," these are in fact purposely called essence
sets by the rules, and they do not qualify as decks.
Effects that refer to "any deck," such as Wild Tourist, thus do
not apply to essence sets. The deck: Game
effects that target "the deck" are targeting the cosmic deck,
and thus do not apply to the reward deck unless
specifically allowed. Drawing: If a player needs to
draw cards and there are not enough in the cosmic deck after
shuffling the discard pile, see cosmic
quake.
:defensive ally
bug: Previous editions of the
game required defensive allies to be placed on the ring near the
pointed end of what was then called the hyperspace cone. This
allowed the phrase "ships in the cone" to conveniently refer to all
ships in the encounter except those of the defense (that is, all the
ships that came to the encounter from somewhere else and are
currently in a kind of "game-state limbo," since they eventually
have to go back to colonies or the warp). The FFG edition instead
requires defensive allies to be sort of "floating near the planet"
and emphatically not in the hyperspace gate. Unfortunately,
this change was not carried out through the cards and so there are
some game effects that refer to ships in the gate when they really
mean "ships in the gate plus defensive allies (if any)" or "ships in
the gate and those floating between the gate and the planet" or "all
ships in the encounter except those of the defense" or somesuch.
These game effects leave the fate of defensive allies undefined. The
Cosmodex would very much like to "correct" the rulebook to put
defensive allies back in the gate where they belong, but instead
opts to fix the broken cards (Super Macron, Super Observer, Super Oracle, and
Skeptic so far) in
the interest of giving new players fewer things to worry about. (See
launch bug for a
related problem.)
:Delta
Scanners: Tech, base set,
designed by Fantasy Flight Games. FAQ
clarification: You are not required to reveal which
card you take.
Draw from Discard.
Once completed, you may discard this tech at the start
of any encounter to take any one card from the discard
pile and add it to your hand.
(2) (As Any
Player)
(Regroup)
:Demon:
Alien power, 42nd Anniversary edition, designed by Robin Raianiemi,
illustrated by Felicia
Cano. Contest Winner: This implementation
of Demon was the winning entry in the 2014 CosmicCon alien redesign
contest; a copy was given out to CosmicCon attenders, although
misprinted with a timing indicator of Launch. It was then later
added to the base game in the 42nd Anniversary edition and the
timing was corrected to Alliance. After CosmicCon, it was pointed
out that Demon was a functional superset of Doppelganger, and the
design committee reported that it would need revisions before
getting published officially. Unfortunately this was not done.
Retooled gameplay: Eon's Demon was completely
different: it could take over another player's encounter by
replacing his ships with Demon's own ships.
Possesses Others'
Hands (Yellow)
You
have the power to Possess. As a main
player, before allies are invited, you may
use this power to take possession
of the hand of any other player except your opponent.
Place those cards facedown on this sheet. They are not
part of your hand, but you may use cards from here as
though they were in your hand. If a card played from
this sheet would return to your hand after use, return
it to its previous owner instead. At the end of the
encounter, return any cards remaining on this sheet to
their previous owner.
(Main Player
Only)
(Optional)
(Alliance)
Hailing
from deep within the core of a molten planet, a race
of Demons was exiled from their original galaxy for
unprincipled opportunism. Knowing their mere
presence saps others' will to win, they now seek
Cosmic vengeance.
Wild: As a
main player, before allies are invited, you may possess
any one other player except your opponent in order to
force that player to ally with you when it is his or her
turn to do so. That player must send as many ships as
possible, up to the number of ships you have in the
encounter, but he or she is not required to abandon any
colonies to do so.
(Main Player
Only)
(Alliance)
Super:
When using your power, you may draw six cards from the
deck to possess instead of another player's hand. If a
possessed card would return to your hand after use, it
does so. At the end of the encounter, return any
remaining possessed cards to the top of the deck in any
order.
(Main Player
Only)
(Alliance)
:Dervish:
Alien power, Cosmic Storm, designed by Fantasy Flight Games,
illustrated by Felicia
Cano.
Rotates Cards Left or
Right (Yellow)
You
have the power to Whirl. As a main player,
after alliances are formed, you may
use this power to call "clockwise"
or "counterclockwise." Each player involved in the
encounter as a main player or ally must pass his or her
hand of cards in the chosen direction to the next player
involved in the encounter.
(Main Player
Only)
(Optional)
(Alliance)
The
constant whirling and high-speed revolution of the
Dervishes make them unpredictable and chaotic. In
fact, their undulations have been known to make some
aliens queasy. Dervishes delight in bold sweeping
tactics and surprises in combat, sometimes turning
their opponents' resources against
them.
Wild: As
the defense in your home system, after the hyperspace
gate is aimed, you may exchange your hand with the hand
of any other player.
(Defense
Only)
(Launch)
Super: If
you are passed this flare as a result of using your
power, you may play it to immediately establish a colony
in the system of the player who passed it to you.
Afterwards, discard this flare.
(Main Player
Only)
(Alliance)
:destiny
cards: See also Invasion! for another
kind of destiny card. Zero is a number:
The "fewest ships in the warp" special destiny card does
apply to players who have zero ships in the warp. Zero is certainly
a number, and it is always less than any other number from 1 to 20.
Furthermore, each of the three special destiny cards is clearly
designed to target whoever is in the best position
according to its own particular method of measurement (not the
second-best position). Sadly, from time to time some player will
report that opponents tried to argue against this obvious fact. Some
have stated that those people are not smart enough to play Cosmic
Encounter, but the Cosmodex's trained human minion has to wonder if
they just aren't intellectually honest enough to play
Cosmic Encounter. Tip: If you run into the "zero is
not a number" argument, ask the troublemaker who he thinks is
supposed to be the defense when everyone has zero ships in the warp
(by his faulty logic, nobody would be a viable candidate). If that
doesn't convince him, you may want to just give up and try to play
future games with people who are more willing to listen to reason.
Retooled gameplay: Destiny was implemented with
discs in the Eon and Avalon Hill editions, and with cards in the
Mayfair and FFG editions. Eon and Mayfair had "reverse cone" effects
on one destiny disc/card of each color; FFG has hazard warning
indicators for use with the hazard deck in Cosmic
Conflict, the variable attack cards in Cosmic
Dominion, and a few alien powers. Edited to add
missing third option when drawing your own color.
Purple [for example]
Have an encounter with the purple
player in his or her home system.
However, if you
are the purple player, {either:}
then
A) Have an
encounter with any other player in your home system, or{,}
B)
Re-establish a home colony
on one of your empty planets, or
C)
Discard this card and draw again.
Wild
Have an encounter with any other
player of your choice in his or her home system.
Special
Have an encounter with the player who
has the [fewest ships in the
warp/most cards in
hand/most foreign
colonies] (other than you). In the event of
a tie, break the tie to your left.
The encounter
takes place in the other player's home system.
:Deuce:
Alien power, Cosmic Incursion, designed by Future Pastimes,
illustrated by Ryan Barger. One encounter card: If
Deuce is reduced to exactly one encounter card as the defense, he
draws a new hand (according to his power text). If he is reduced to
exactly one encounter card as the offense, however, he
continues the encounter normally but just doesn't
use his power. The text requires
proceeding as if out of cards only when "checking to see if you draw
a new hand," not when "checking to see if you must end your
turn." Self-modifying encounter cards: When Deuce
uses a Morph, a
Retreat, or a variable attack card
as his second card, it will modify itself upon being revealed (as
appropriate, based on the opponent's encounter card or the current
hazard warning
status). However, Deuce's text limits the ways in which the second
card can influence the encounter. When his second card is a Retreat
and the opponent reveals an attack, Deuce's text does not
allow the Retreat to take part in determining the encounter outcome,
and thus it cannot force him to lose; but it also cannot save his
side's ships if he loses anyway because of his actual encounter
card. If Deuce reveals a Retreat as his regular encounter card and
an attack as his second card, the Retreat either loses or deals (as
usual) and is kept, while the attack card is discarded. (Note that
it is not possible to play an intimidate card for
Deuce's power, since the intimidate is not an encounter
card at the time it would have to be played.) Which
negotiate to apply or discard? When Deuce has revealed
two different negotiate cards (such as a regular one and a Crooked
Deal, or a negotiate and a Morph/Retreat that "went green"), the
Cosmodex recommends letting the player choose which one applies to
the encounter. He should then discard that same card, since it was
actually used and the other was not. A Retreat that becomes a
negotiate is a candidate for discarding like any other negotiate,
but one that remains a Retreat will be kept since Deuce's text
allows only for attacks and negotiates to be discarded. In the
profoundly unlikely case that Deuce reveals two Retreats
and the opponent reveals an attack, Deuce would lose the encounter
and keep both of his cards. Which attack to
discard? When Deuce has revealed two attack cards, both
will apply to the encounter and the higher one must be discarded. If
they have the same numeric value but are actually different in some
significant way (such as cosmic-back 10 + reward-back 10, 12 +
12/21, or Morph + any
attack card that matches the opponent's card), the Cosmodex
recommends letting the player choose which attack card to discard
and which one to keep. Wild Deuce and card
modifications: Player consensus is that Wild Deuce must
match another card's value after any modifications by other
effects, rather than its original, printed value, since the flare's
effect is directly relevant to the encounter outcome (see card modifications).
Tip: Against Anti-Matter and/or
Loser, try to get
multiple use out of any negative attack card you have. For example,
if you have attack -07 and attack 06, play them together against
Anti-Matter or an upset Loser; they will combine for a total of -1
and you will get to keep the -07 to use against that player again.
Tip: A Morph or a Retreat may sometimes be
attractive to Deuce as a backup to a primary attack card, especially
when he is the defense, since this configuration lets him meet a
potential attack with strength while also preserving the opportunity
to make a deal for a new colony should the opponent reveal a
negotiate. Thus, for Deuce, attack + morph or attack + retreat
functions much like an intimidate card would. On the other hand, if
Deuce has a lot of weak attack cards, he may want to keep playing
the Retreat as his main card and one of the weak attacks as his
second card in order to recycle the Retreat, repeatedly saving his
ships and colonies while he purges the weak attacks.
Retooled gameplay: FFG's Deuce plays essentially
the same as Eon's, but does a better job of clarifying how to handle
the extra card, as well as when the Deuce draws a new hand. Eon's
Wild Deuce was completely different: it allowed a player to make one
extra encounter at the end of his turn. Link: [Unofficial classic
Eon flare]
Plays 2 Encounter
Cards (Yellow)
You
have the power of Duality. As a main
player, after encounter cards are selected but before
they are revealed, use this
power to place a second encounter card facedown off to
one side. This second card is not considered your
encounter card and isn't affected by game effects that
target your encounter card, such as those of the Oracle
or Sorcerer. If both of your encounter cards are
revealed to be attacks, the second card's value is added
to your side's total. If either is a negotiate, then you
have played a negotiate. After the encounter is
resolved, discard the negotiate card if you played one,
or the higher attack card if you did not, returning the
other encounter card to your hand.
When checking
to see if you draw a new hand, do so if you have one or
fewer encounter cards left, rather than
none.
(Main Player
Only)
(Mandatory)
(Planning)
Twin
suns and a double moon have endowed the ambidextrous
Deuce with twice the strength of their opponents.
Cleverly concealing their real motives behind an
amiable mask, the duplicitous Deuce see universal
control within reach.
Wild: As a
main player or ally, after encounter cards are revealed,
if you have an attack card in your hand that is
identical to one of the revealed cards, you may discard
it, either adding or subtracting its value from the
total of the player who played the matching
card.
(Main Player or
Ally Only)
(Reveal)
Super:
After the encounter is resolved, you may discard both
your encounter card and your extra
card.
(Main Player
Only)
(Resolution)
:Dictator:
Alien power, base set, designed by Future Pastimes, revised by
Patrick Riley, illustrated by Ryan Barger. Tip: At
those times when you hope to draw your own color for destiny, or if
there is a particular player that you absolutely do not
want to encounter on your turn, you can increase your odds by
repeatedly giving other players their own color for destiny; some
(most?) of them will want destiny redrawn, thus speeding up the
process of getting cards that are not your color out of the destiny
deck. Retooled gameplay: Eon's Dictator was
optional while FFG's is mandatory; however, this difference is more
academic than actual, since the FFG player can simply "choose" the
top card of the destiny deck, accomplishing the same result as not
using his power. Eon's Dictator could simply declare a color to
override the destiny disc drawn; FFG's improved design maintains the
natural distribution of how often players are attacked and also
prepares Dictator to have more flexibility with possible future
additions to the destiny deck. This version allows a bit more
latitude in the rare situation where a player is not required to
encounter the defense in the defense's own system (e.g., Wild Will), whereas
Eon's version mandated that the encounter had to take place "in the
system of that color." Eon's version also appeared to prevent the
player from re-drawing destiny in the event that Dictator commands
the player's own color. FFG's Wild Dictator is greatly simplified
compared to Eon's, which allowed a player to propose a new destiny
color and then required all players to vote. (FFG's Wild Dictator is
essentially Eon's Wild Chronos restricted to "not offense.")
Edited for wording consistency.
Link: [Kevin Wilson on
Dictator]
Controls Destiny Deck
(Red)
You
have the power to Command. When you are not
the offense, before destiny is drawn,
use this power to take the
destiny deck, look through it, and choose any card from
it. That destiny card is played as though the offense
had drawn it. On your turn, or any time you are zapped,
the remaining destiny cards are shuffled, and one is
dealt at random.
(Not
Offense)
(Mandatory)
(Destiny)
Grotesque
creatures rejected by an old and cultured world, the
Dictators pushed and clawed their way to planetary
dominion. Relentless in their demands, they turn
friend against friend to do their bidding. Recently
they have begun to tire of toying with the weak
races at home and seek to control the entire
Universe.
Wild: When
you are not the offense, after destiny is drawn, you may
force the offense to discard the destiny card he or she
drew and draw again. Use this flare only once per
encounter.
(Not
Offense)
(Destiny)
Super: You
may use your power as the offense.
(Offense Only)
(Destiny)
:Diplomat:
Alien power, Cosmic Dominion, designed by Future Pastimes, revised
by Rob Burns and Patrick Riley, illustrated by Andrew Olson.
Retooled gameplay: Eon's Diplomat did not require
playing a negotiate card to use the power.
Can Negotiate 3-Way
Deals (Yellow)
You
have the power to Negotiate. When you are
not a main player and one or more attack cards are
revealed in an encounter, you may
use this power to play a negotiate
card from your hand and turn the revealed attack cards
into regular negotiate cards. Then, you and the two main
players have two minutes to attempt to reach a three-way
deal. Apply all unique effects found on the three
negotiate cards. Unless all three players agree on a
deal, the deal fails and each loses the appropriate
number of ships. All three players are treated as
opponents of each other for game effects that affect
deals.
(Not Main
Player)
(Optional)
(Reveal)
A
foreboding presence held in awe by other planetary
life forms, the Diplomats strike only when their
webs are fully spun. Then, for extricating those
caught by their own rash acts, the Diplomats
negotiate their terms.
Wild: When
a deal is being attempted without you, you may play a
negotiate card from your hand to remove one of the
players from that deal and take his or her place.
Restart the time limit. Your card's game effect applies,
and you receive the deal's benefits or penalties as
appropriate. If you make a deal, it counts as a success
for the player you replaced.
(Not Main
Player)
(Reveal)
Super: As
a main player, after alliances are formed, instead of
playing encounter cards to determine the winner you may
call a vote of all players (defense wins ties). You may
buy votes by making deals, which are carried out only if
you win. Tally the results and proceed to the resolution
phase.
(Main Player
Only)
(Alliance)
:Disease:
Alien power, Cosmic Incursion, designed by Future Pastimes,
illustrated by Ryan Barger. Three-ship requirement:
The way in which this power was rewritten caused players to debate
whether it is required to have three ships together on a single
colony or just three ships anywhere within the system; presumably
FFG did not intend to change the gameplay. Tip: As
the game progresses, keep a mental count of what's left in the
destiny deck so you know which colors are most likely to come up.
Also try to figure in who has the fewest ships in the warp, the most
foreign colonies, and the biggest hand if those special destinies
have not yet been drawn. This will help you know where your most
likely infection opportunities are. Try to maintain a colony of four
or five ships in those systems, as protection against ship-killer
effects like Shadow and Ship Zap, but also so that you can take
advantage of the same color coming up twice in quick succession.
Nothing stings like losing an infection opportunity because you just
spread in that system on the previous destiny draw and split your
only three-ship colony there into one- and two-ship colonies.
Retooled gameplay: FFG's Disease plays essentially
the same as Eon's (the ambiguity of the rewrite notwithstanding),
but clarifies that it also works on a special or wild destiny. Eon's
Wild Disease made all other players as a group discard various
resources in a manner somewhat like Sniveler's effect, and
it did not have the matching aspect of the FFG version. Eon's Super
Disease was completely different; it allowed Disease to spread even
if it had only one ship in the host system, using ships from any of
its colonies anywhere. Historical note: Eon's
Disease had the power to "spread"; FFG's change to "contagion" is a
weaker fit, and the game text's statement that you infect that
player does not make sense: the player had to be
already infected before this power could even be used, when
Disease got his first colony in that system. (A power that truly
"infects" would be one that helps you get your first colony
somewhere, not your second and later ones.) The original theme made
perfect sense and did not need to be tinkered with. Wording
template: Among the base game and the first three
expansions sets, 11 flares were designed to be given to the
associated alien after use. Curiously, those 11 cards used 10
different wordings to say so. The versions on Wild Disease and Wild Filth are the
most concise and nearly identical to each other, and after Cosmic
Storm this template was used as the standard (on five flares in
Cosmic Dominion and 11 in Cosmic Eons).
Appendix B
revises the earlier flares to use this template.
Edited to remove the ambiguity about the
prerequisite for infecting, to clarify that Disease cannot infect
himself even on a wild destiny, and to avoid misusing the game term
"reveal." Links: [Corrected
power] [Unofficial classic
Eon flare]
Spreads to Other
Planets (Red)
You
have the power of Contagion. Whenever any
other player's color or a special destiny card that
targets another player is drawn from the destiny deck,
you may use this power to
infect one of that player's planets. If you have a colony in the
infected player's home system consisting of at least
three ships, take one or more of your ships from it,
moving them to any other planet in that system. On a
wild destiny card, you may infect only the opponent that is
chosen to be the defense.
(Not
Defense)
(Optional)
(Destiny)
Long
ago, having decimated all life forms on their native
planet, the Disease seemed in danger of extinction
due to their own success. The advent of interstellar
travel, however, gave them a new lease on life. Once
the Disease secure a foothold on a new world, it is
only a matter of time before they dominate
it.
Wild: At
the start of any regroup phase, you may force every
other player to choose one card from his or her hand in
secret. Cards are then shown simultaneously before being
discarded. Any player who showed the same card type
(attack, negotiate, etc.) as another player loses 3
ships to the warp. Give this flare to the Disease after
use (or discard it, if the Disease isn't
playing).
(As Any
Player)
(Regroup)
Super: At
the start of any regroup phase, you may move one of your
ships from one of your colonies to another of your
colonies.
(As Any
Player)
(Regroup)
:Do Not
Use: Four alien powers — Gambler, Magician, Coordinator, and Sadist — have "Do Not
Use with" restrictions preventing them from being in the same game
with Sorcerer, Oracle, Dictator, Zombie, and Healer. The rules do
not specify how to implement this, but the sometimes-forgetful
Cosmodex thinks it remembers player consensus being
something like the following. If two mutually exclusive powers
should come into play at the same time, the one with the printed
restriction should be discarded and replaced with another alien.
(This occurs typically at game setup time, in which case you may
wish to let the player draw a replacement and then choose to play
either that replacement or the other alien that he initially
declined to play.) If a power should come into play mid-game but
another mutually exclusive one is already in play, the
newer one must be discarded and replaced. Most of the game effects
that bring new aliens into play mid-game specifically state this,
but it can also be an issue when using the Hidden Powers variant; so
players who have a potentally "restrictable" hidden power should
keep this in mind when deciding how long to wait to reveal it.
Avoidable: The two earliest of these restrictions
(on Gambler and Magician) were actually unnecessary. In both cases,
simple text clarifications allow these powers to play against each
other, and in such a way that each player still receives a benefit
from his power. These clarifications essentially take up no more
vertical space than the large-print restrictions they would replace.
In the case of Magician, the clarification is already needed anyway
(even without Oracle in the mix) to handle the much more common case
of Magician facing Wild
Magician. The Cosmodex presents (and heartily recommends)
do-use-with clarifications for these powers.
Unavoidable: Coordinator and Sadist, unfortunately,
cannot easily be freed of their restrictions.
Needed: Many players have commented that Masochist really
should say "Do Not Use with Healer," and the
Cosmodex adds this restriction as a recommended house rule.
:Doppelganger:
Alien power, Cosmic Dominion, designed by Future Pastimes, revised
by Jack Reda and Bill Martinson, illustrated by Andrew Olson.
Retooled Gameplay: Eon's Doppelganger could haunt
any player, including his opponent, and specified exactly one attack
and one compromise (negotiate) card, since other types of encounter
cards had not yet been invented. If that Doppelganger received only
one card, he played it; if he received none, he played the first
appropriate card drawn from the deck. The original version always
had to discard encounter cards immediately; this modernized
Doppelganger discards encounter cards in the planning phase, so that
he has the chance to hold some for effects like Hate, Love, and Wild Disease. Eon's
Wild Doppelganger was completely different: it allowed you to keep
the number of ships committed to the hyperspace gate a secret until
the end of the encounter. Eon's Super Doppelganger was completely
different: it allowed Doppelganger to keep flares he acquired (which
is of course part of the base power in the FFG version).
Borrows Cards to Play
(Red)
You
have the power to Haunt. As a main player,
before encounter cards are selected,
use this power to discard all
encounter cards in your hand (if any) and haunt one
other player except your opponent. That player must give
you two encounter cards of different types from his or
her hand (or one if holding only one type). One of these
must be the player's highest attack card, if he or she
has any. When encounter cards are to be selected, if you
have fewer than two encounter cards for any reason
(including being zapped), you draw from the deck until
you have two, discarding all non-encounter cards drawn.
After cards are revealed, return any cards received from
the haunted player that are still in your hand to that
player.
You ignore all consequences of lacking
encounter cards, such as drawing a new hand (even for
game effects such as the Usurper's power), ending your
turn, or losing the encounter due to the Laser's
power.
(Main Player
Only)
(Mandatory)
(Planning)
Haunting
its Cosmic colleagues, the Doppelganger often gets
the better of them. Each encounter leaves its
jittery victim with the feeling that there is more
to every passing shadow than meets the
eye.
Wild: If
you are not a main player, during the alliance phase you
may set your hand aside and take the hand of one player
who has a colony in your system. If you take the
offense's hand, he or she draws a new one. At the end of
the encounter, give your hand back to that player and
take back the hand you set aside.
(Not Main
Player)
(Alliance)
Super:
When using your power, you may also force any player
other than your opponent to give you any two
non-encounter cards from his or her hand (or one if he
or she has only one), which you keep.
(Main Player
Only)
(Planning)
:Emotion
Control: Artifact, base set,
designed by Future Pastimes.
Alters Attack. Play
after encounter cards are revealed to treat all attack
cards played this encounter as negotiate cards. The main
players must then attempt to make a
deal.
(As Any
Player)
(Reveal)
:Empath:
Alien power, Cosmic Conflict, designed by Future Pastimes, revised
by Gary Huckaby, illustrated by Felicia
Cano. Retooled gameplay: Eon's Empath was
mandatory and worked only when its owner was the player who revealed
the Compromise card; that version was often disparaged as an alleged
"subset" of Pacifist. Some rightly argued that Empath was valuable
in its own right since it could earn its owner a new colony when on
defense (which Pacifist cannot do), but Pacifist was clearly
preferred and certainly the stronger of the two overall. FFG's
choice to adopt Huckaby's revised version considerably strengthens
Empath and further differentiates it from Pacifist; two welcome
improvements. (See negotiate cards.) The
classic edition flare matches Eon gameplay; the standard edition
Wild flare is a new effect designed by FFG. Edited
to clarify that the first use of "negotiate" includes Crooked Deals
while the second use excludes them, and to keep Masochist from abusing
Classic Wild Empath for an immediate win. Links: [Corrected
flare]
May Change Attack to
Negotiate (Green)
You
have the power of Harmony. As a main
player, after either main player reveals any negotiate card and
the other main player reveals an attack card, you
may use this power to change
the revealed attack card into a regular negotiate
card. You and the other main player then attempt to make
a deal.
(Main Player
Only)
(Optional)
(Reveal)
Eons
of overpopulation forced the highly social Empaths
to cooperate in order to survive. On their lush,
tropical planet, they learned the value of defense
and yielding. Now, they are striving to teach
harmony to all other Cosmic life
forms.
Wild: You
may play this flare when you attempt to make a deal. If
you successfully make a deal, you and the other player
in the deal each receive three rewards.
(Main Player
Only)
(Any
Phase)
Super: As
a main player or ally, if the opposing main player
reveals a negotiate card, you may exchange it for an
attack card from your hand. Conclude the encounter as if
he or she revealed that attack card.
(Main Player or
Ally Only)
(Reveal)
Classic
Edition
Wild: As a
main player, for the rest of this encounter, you may
remove one ship from any colony (your choice) to the
warp from each other player who does
not say "Sir" or "Ma'am" (whichever is appropriate) each
time he or she speaks.
(Main Player
Only)
(Any
Phase)
Super: As
a main player or ally, if the opposing main player
reveals a negotiate card, you may exchange it for an
attack card from your hand. Conclude the encounter as if
he or she revealed that attack card.
(Main Player or
Ally Only)
(Reveal)
:Emperor:
Alien power, Cosmic Eons, illustrated by Felicia
Cano. Rescue: If a ship marking a tribute
is released by something like Ship Zap or Super Symbiote, it's
probably best to return the tribute card to its giver. (This return
is consistent with a similar situation that can occur with Pack Rat.) However, if
you prefer, there's no harm in leaving the tribute on the sheet for
Emperor to consider later. A tribute without an owner ID probably
wouldn't contribute to meeting the condition of "tributes from two
different players," and probably shouldn't be returned as unworthy
to its giver since it would no longer have a defined giver.
Demands Tribute (Yellow)
You
have the power of Tribute. Each time
another player sends one or more ships into an encounter
in your system or gains a colony in your system, you
may use this power to demand a
tribute. That player must show you one card from his or
her hand and must also give you one of his or her ships
from a colony. Place the card facedown on this sheet and
put the ship on top of the card as an owner ID. The
player may refuse if he or she has already given you a
tribute during this encounter.
At the end of any
encounter, as long as there are three or more total
tributes on this sheet from at least two different
players, you may look at all of them. Add the tributes
you consider worthy to your hand and discard those you
consider unworthy. You may return one of the unworthy
tributes to its giver, causing that player to lose three
ships to the warp. Then the ID ships return to any of
their owners' colonies.
(As Any
Player)
(Optional)
(Start
Turn)(Regroup)(Destiny)(Launch)(Alliance)(Planning)(Reveal)(Resolution)
The
egotistical magistrates of the Emperor race demand
respect above all else. Rarely do gifts curry much
favor with these narcissists, but an enticing
offering made in a feigned spirit of deference can
often turn away wrath, if only
briefly.
Wild: When
a main player declines to invite you to ally, you may
show him or her a card from your hand to reconsider. If
that player invites you, then he or she decides which of
you must keep the card. If he or she does not, then you
decide which of you must keep the card.
(Not Main Player or
Ally)
(Alliance)
Super:
When using your power, you may demand an encounter card,
a non-encounter card, a card of one particular type, or
a specific card by name. The other player must meet your
demand if possible. (If not, then he or she offers any
card normally.)
(As Any
Player)
(Any
Phase)
:encounters:
Duration: The Start Turn phase is not part of an
encounter (although if something happens in the Start Turn phase and
it has a duration of the rest of the encounter, it will last until
the end of the Resolution phase as usual). An encounter begins when
a player signals that he is starting his Regroup phase and ends
after the last action of the Resolution phase. Each player must make
at least one encounter on his turn; if that encounter is successful
and he wishes to make a second encounter (or to draw a new tech
instead), he must have an encounter card in hand at the end
of the prior Resolution phase. No offensive ships:
Under rare circumstances, such as via Amoeba's power, it is possible
for the offense to be without ships in the hyperspace gate. This
does not automatically end the encounter; the offense simply
continues, just (probably) without the possibility of gaining a
foreign colony (Encounter magazine v1n4p16).
Outcome: There are several ways an encounter can
end, although many games will see only the three most common: (1)
one side wins and the other loses, (2) both players make a deal, and
(3) both players fail to deal. However, there are other
possibilities: (4) the encounter ends prematurely (Wild Moocher, Super Oracle, or the
offense running out of encounter cards), (5) both sides lose (Wild Loser, Morph vs.
Morph, or Meteor
Storm), and (6) the encounter is specifically declared to
end successfully for one or both of the players though there is no
winner or loser (see examples in a later section).
Successful: The FAQ states that there is no
difference between winning an encounter and having a
successful encounter. This is not correct.
Winning an encounter is one way of having a
successful encounter, and making a deal is another way of having a
successful encounter — but these three terms are not
interchangeable. "Successful encounter" is the overall umbrella
condition that determines whether you can have a second encounter.
But a deal does not count as a "win" for game effects that do not
explicitly mention deals, like Animal, Architect, Cudgel, Barbarian, Guerrilla, Leviathan, Remote, and Sapient.
Explicitly declared successful: It seems that there
is also a third, "general" kind of successful encounter created by a
handful of special rules and game effects that deem an encounter to
be a success for a main player but do not define it as a
"win." These include Coward, Wild Coward, Wild Diplomat, Mite, Wild Leviathan, Super Swindler,
reclaiming an empty home planet after drawing your own destiny
color, and the Cosmodex's revision for Wild Butler (which is
based on the destiny rule wording). Although it might have
been the intention for these outcomes to count as "wins," in the
absence of any evidence to that effect the Cosmodex now considers
them a third, distinct kind of successful outcome. This prevents
questions and ambiguities with certain other effects that require a
win or a loss. For example, if you use Wild Leviathan to trade home
planets, your encounter is deemed "successful" but this is not
actually a win; thus your opponent may not claim he "lost" the
encounter in order to play something like Wild Fury or Super Trickster.
Reclaiming home colonies: The FAQ states that when
you draw your own color for destiny and aim the hyperspace gate at
one of your unoccupied home planets, you do not go through any
encounter phases past the Destiny phase. This is not correct.
Because the rules require you to actually aim the hyperspace
gate at the unoccupied planet, the encounter must proceed
as far as the Launch phase. (Note also that the Cosmodex formerly
declared this situation as an encounter you won, but has
changed its tune and now considers it just an encounter that is
"successful in general" (see previous subsection).
Extra: As of Cosmic Eons, the effects that grant
players extra encounters are Infinity Drive, Invader, Lightning, Machine, Wild Machine, Tortoise, Wild Tortoise, and
Wild Warrior. (As
honorable mentions, Coward, Temporal Matrix, and
Anarchist's Success
Rule Disruption essence card allow you to have your normal second
encounter even though your turn otherwise would have ended.) These
extra encounters do not get their own Start Turn phase.
:encounter
cards: The term "encounter card"
can be confusing in a couple of ways. First,
although the words are printed in the area of the card template that
normally displays card types, this is emphatically not a
card type. Rather it is a collection that comprises four
card types: attack, negotiate, retreat, and morph. (Intimidates,
kickers, and reinforcements are not encounter cards.) Game effects
that refer to card types are referring to those four types (and
others) individually. You can think of "encounter card" as an
attribute, characteristic, or property that those four card types
share, or perhaps a special category in which they reside.
Second, the phrase "encounter cards" sometimes
means "cards of those four types" but at other times means more
specifically "the encounter cards played and/or revealed during the
current encounter." (An amusing consequence of this duality can be
seen in Deuce trying
to explain that "this [encounter card] is not considered your
encounter card.") To determine which meaning is intended at any
given time, you will have to consider the context.
Selecting: When encounter cards are selected and
played in an encounter, either player may go first, and both players
are allowed to change their choice of encounter card after seeing
the card-back design (cosmic or reward) of their opponent's
encounter card. If this produces a standoff where each player's
choice is contingent upon the other player's card back, then
somebody will eventually just have to pick a card and stick with it.
Intimidates: Intimidate cards are the first card
type designed specifically to cross this boundary; most of the time
they are non-encounter cards, but when one is selected to serve
as an encounter card, it then becomes one for all purposes
related to the resolution of that encounter.
:encounter
deck: There is no such thing as
an encounter deck. This term, which appears in Bandit's game text,
should be understood to mean the cosmic deck.
:Encounter
magazine: Eon Products Inc.
published six issues (v1n1-v1n6) of this newsletter in 1983,
containing news, homebrew ideas, Q&A, and other content about
Eon games in general and Cosmic Encounter in particular. Editor and
rules guru Jack Kittredge provided logical and consistent answers to
a large number of core gameplay questions, some of which are still
appropriate for the FFG edition and thus cited in the Cosmodex.
Mayfair resumed publication in 1991/1992 with three more issues
(v2n1-v2n3) covering their edition of the game.
:Energy
Cloak: Tech, base set, designed
by Fantasy Flight Games.
Prevent Allies. Once
completed, you may discard this tech as the offense
after aiming the hyperspace gate. The defense may not
invite any players to ally with him or her during this
encounter.
(4)
(Offense
Only)
(Launch)
:Energy
Fields: Hazard, Cosmic Conflict,
designed by Fantasy Flight Games. Unanswered question:
When each main player shows his drawn cards to the "other" players,
is this supposed to mean the other players who are not drawing
cards or all players (in other words, does it
include or exclude his opponent)? Edited to answer
that question. Link: [Corrected
card]
Each main player draws two cards from
the deck, showing them to {the other}
all players, before
allies are invited.
:Engineer:
Alien power, Cosmic Dominion, designed by Warren Denning, history by
Zach Whelchel, illustrated by Felicia
Cano. Edited to add the missing preposition
(mea culpa).
Gains Tech When Losing
(Yellow)
You
have the power of Technology. As a main
player, when you lose an encounter or fail to deal, you
may use this power. Draw two
tech cards from the technology deck (even if it is not
otherwise in play). You may choose one of the drawn
cards to place facedown on this sheet. If you do so, and
another tech was already on this sheet, the new one
replaces it. The tech(s) you do not keep are
discarded.
You may research the tech card on this
sheet normally and/or count your ships in the warp
toward its research cost. When the tech is completed,
move it off this sheet. Ships counted from the warp do
not return to colonies with other researching ships, but
may be used for the effect of a tech such as Coldsleep
Ship or Genesis Bomb.
If this power or a tech
card on it is stolen, discarded, etc., any ships that
were researching the tech card on this sheet are
returned to any of your colonies.
(Main Player
Only)
(Optional)
(Resolution)
Engineers
seek to rule the Universe through technological
superiority. Valuing intelligence and ingenuity over
might, they use scientific breakthroughs to
subjugate those who oppose them, no matter how
strong.
Wild: You
may draw cards from the deck until you draw an artifact
card. Non-artifacts drawn are discarded. If you exhaust
the deck without drawing an artifact, take any one
artifact from the discard pile. Give this flare to the
Engineer after use (or discard it, if the Engineer isn't
playing).
(As Any
Player)
(Any
Phase)
Super:
When using your power, instead of drawing two tech cards
you may look through the technology deck and take one
card of your
choice. Then, shuffle the technology
deck.
(Main Player
Only)
(Resolution)
:Enigma
Device: Tech, base set, designed
by Fantasy Flight Games. Noteworthy interaction:
Enigma Device, unless countered by Tech Scrambler or
Omni-Zap,
essentially makes Genius a
non-power.
Reset All Hands to 8
Cards. Once completed, you may discard this
tech at the start of any encounter. Each player,
starting with you and continuing clockwise, either draws
cards from the deck or discards cards at random as
needed to bring his or her hand to exactly eight cards.
You (and only you) may discard as many of your cards as
you wish beforehand.
(4) (As Any
Player)
(Regroup)
:Entropy Beast,
The: Hazard, Cosmic Conflict,
designed by Fantasy Flight Games. Clarification:
According to Kevin Wilson, The Entropy Beast ends the game if any
player's system is (or already was) reduced below three planets for
any reason; the reduction does not have to have been caused by The
Entropy Beast itself. Link: [Kevin Wilson on
Entropy Beast]
While The Entropy Beast is in play,
each time a special or wild destiny card is drawn,
remove the planet with the most ships on it from the
game (offense breaks ties), sending all ships on it to
the warp. If a player's home system is reduced below
three planets, all players lose the game.
Discard
The Cosmic Guardian and The Witness when The Entropy
Beast enters play.
(This Card Remains
in Play)
:essence
cards: Cosmic Eons introduced 55
half-size essence cards that allow certain aliens in that set to
"leave parts of themselves around the Cosmos" in various ways. The
seven aliens with essence cards are Alien (9 traumas),
Anarchist (8
disruptions), Assistant (6 help
cards), Nanny (8
consequences), Nightmare (10 bad
dreams), Oligarch (5
privileges), and Sheriff (9 tickets).
There are also a few non-essence aliens that are "essence-aware":
AI, Evil Twin, Pack Rat, and Pretender.
:Ethic:
Alien power, Cosmic Incursion, designed by Future Pastimes,
illustrated by Ryan Barger. Retooled gameplay:
Eon's Ethic was significantly different, and arguably stronger. On
the negative side, it did not let Ethic take compensation from the
deck instead of his opponent and it allowed the opponent to spend
Lucre to prevent the compensation. On the positive side, it worked
even when an opponent won the encounter without playing an attack
card (such as Pacifist, Loser holding only
negotiate cards, Super
Loser, zapped Human, etc.); provided
4 cards in compensation even if fewer ships were lost; and allowed
Ethic to discard any of the cards he did not want to keep. Eon's
Super Ethic was completely different: it stopped the opponent from
using Lucre to prevent compensation.
Gets Compensation for
Attack (Green)
You
have the power of Guilt. As a main player,
after you lose an encounter in which both players
revealed attack cards, use
this power to collect compensation from your opponent as
though you had played a negotiate card
instead.
Whenever you gain compensation, you may
draw some or all of it from the deck instead of your
opponent.
(Main Player
Only)
(Mandatory)
(Resolution)
Subscribing
to a moral code of the utmost purity, the Ethics set
a universal standard of conduct. Those who would
harm the Ethics find themselves curiously repentant.
Knowing that they are possessed of the One True Way,
the race of Ethics now seeks to convert Outsiders
through moral suasion.
Wild: When
you draw any new card(s) from the deck, you may use this
flare. For the rest of the encounter, each time you draw
cards, you may feel guilty and give away some or all of
them to other players. You may not, however, give away
more than three cards per encounter in this
way.
(As Any
Player)
(Any
Phase)
Super:
When you collect compensation, you may name a number
from zero to eight and take that many cards as
compensation.
(Main Player
Only)
(Resolution)
:Evil
Twin: Alien power, Cosmic Eons,
designed by Bill Eberle & Peter Olotka, illustrated by Felicia
Cano. Special component: Evil Twin has 2
twin tokens. Edited to use the correct name of
Nightmare's essence
cards.
Avoids Penalties (Red)
You
have the power to Blame. As a main player,
after the offense launches ships, you may
use this power to declare any
other player except your opponent as your good twin by
giving him or her a twin token. Until the next time
destiny is drawn, losses and penalties suffered by you
must instead be suffered by your good twin. Then your
twin token is returned to this sheet.
Losses and
penalties include cards from your hand which are
supposed to be discarded, cards which you must give to
another player (other than your good twin), and ships
which are supposed to go to the warp. Also, essence card
penalties such as tickets, traumas, and bad dreams given to
you are passed on to your good twin. When you lose a
colony, your good twin loses the number of ships you had
on the colony to the warp. Your ships which would have
been lost return to your other colonies if possible.
Otherwise, they remain on the colony.
(Main Player
Only)
(Optional)
(Launch)
On
a world where all are twins, it was not long before
the powerful evil twins began dodging
responsibility. ETs grow stronger as cast-off GTs
habitually shoulder wrongful
blame.
Wild: When
you must send ships to the warp or lose cards to
compensation, as long as you are not currently a good
twin to the Evil Twin, you may force the player to your
left to suffer the loss of the same number of ships or
cards, if possible, instead of you. Give this flare to
that player after use.
(As Any
Player)
(Any
Phase)
Super: You
may become triplets by giving twin tokens to two other
players, even if one is your opponent. Each of your two
good twins simultaneously suffers each entire loss or
penalty which would have been suffered by you. Both
tokens return to your sheet on the next destiny
draw.
(Main Player
Only)
(Launch)
:expansion
sets: See Cosmic
Encounter.
:experience
levels: See alert levels.
:Explorer:
Alien power, Cosmic Dominion, designed by the fans, illustrated by
Andrew Olson. Discovered planets: Explorer begins
with four discoverable planets on its sheet even if you are using
the Four Planets variant, or playing multiple powers with something
like Ace. In every
way, discovered planets are normal
home planets in the systems in which they reside.
Finds New Planets
(Yellow)
Game
Setup: Choose one unused player color and
place four planets of that color on this sheet. Do not
use this power unless you have an unused player
color.
You have the power of
Discovery. As the offense, after the
hyperspace gate is aimed, you may
use this power to take a planet
from this sheet, place it in the targeted system, and
re-aim the gate at that planet.
As a main player
or ally, after both players reveal attack cards, you
may use this power to increase
your side's total according to the planets you have
discovered. Add 1 for each discovered planet you do not
have a colony on, 2 for each discovered planet you
coexist on, and 4 for each discovered planet you occupy
alone.
(Main Player or
Ally Only)
(Optional)
(Launch)
(Reveal)
As
the various child-races of the Precursors began to
take to the stars, most were drawn to one another in
their hunger for knowledge, trade, defense,
conflict, and the other manifold needs that drove
them forward. The Explorers, however, often bypassed
other sentient beings in their haste to catalog new
worlds. Even centuries later, this obsession
continues; but now they begin to reap the rewards of
their diverse discoveries.
Wild: As
the offense, after the hyperspace gate is aimed, you may
take the Genesis planet (whether it is in use or not),
place it in the targeted system, and re-aim the gate at
that planet. You may receive rewards equal to your ships
in the encounter if you win or make a deal, or one
reward if you do not (in addition to any other benefits
of the encounter outcome).
(Offense
Only)
(Launch)
Super: As
a main player or ally in an encounter at any planet you
discovered, after encounter cards are revealed you may
add 4 to your side's total.
(Main Player or
Ally Only)
(Reveal)
:Extortionist:
Alien power, Cosmic Alliance, designed by Future Pastimes,
illustrated by Ryan Barger. Classic Wild Filch:
Extortionist cannot extort cards stolen using Wild Filch; as soon as
he becomes aware of the Filching, the other player is caught and
must return the cards. Zombie: Based on rulings in
the FAQ about Zombie
using effects that require ships to be lost, it would seem that
Zombie is immune to extortion. Retooled gameplay:
Eon's Extortionist could be paid off with Lucre, rather than by
sacrificing a ship to the warp. Eon's Wild Extortionist was
completely different: it extorted Lucre from a player who flipped
your color twice in a row for destiny. Edited to
prevent Extortionist from affecting card draws by effects such as
Chosen, Miser, Chrysalis, and gaining
new tech, to restore
Eon's approach of taking the cards after the other player has
collected them rather than the leaky method of trying to acquire
cards instead of the other player, and to recast Super
Extortionist for readability and removal of the old Eon reference to
a Lucre "payment." Links: [Corrected
power] [Corrected
flare] [Unofficial classic
Eon flare]
Gets Half of All New
Cards (Yellow)
You
have the power to Extort. After starting
hands are dealt, whenever any other player collects
compensation or draws new cards for his or her hand from any
deck for any reason (including rewards, new
hands, etc.), before those
cards are added to that player's hand you
may use this power to {acquire or draw half of
those cards} take half of them
(rounded down) at random for yourself instead. A player
may prevent you from extorting any cards from him or her
by allowing you to send one of his or her ships of your
choice to the warp, but he or she must do so before you
take any cards.
(As Any
Player)
(Optional)
(Start
Turn)(Regroup)(Destiny)(Launch)(Alliance)(Planning)(Reveal)(Resolution)
Warped
by an unstable environment, the Extortionist has
long been crazed by greed. Extortionists prefer
wealth that has been unjustly siphoned from honest
wage-earners, and now, with their hands ever
extended, they hope to amass enough for the final
takeover.
Wild: When
you attempt to make a deal with another player (or
players), you may play this flare. If you fail to make a
deal, you do not lose any ships to the warp, while the
other player (or players) failing to make a deal lose
twice as many ships to the warp as usual for the failed
deal.
(Main Player
Only)
(Reveal)
Super:
{A player may not
prevent you from extorting cards by sending a
ship to the warp if you don't wish to accept the
payment.} You may prevent a player
from stopping your extortion via ship
loss.
(As Any
Player)
(Any
Phase)
/pic1975116.png)
